Final Oscar Squad Before Tuesday’s 2022 Oscar Noms

The 2022 Oscar nominations drop Tuesday morning around 8:30am ET / 5:30am PT. As such, Awards Daily’s Oscar Squad weighs in with their final predictions in our ten covered categories. That’s it. Pencils down. Locked and loaded.

So, what’s changed?

The guild nominations were unveiled since our last publication. The swell of support for some titles have lifted their esteem in the eyes of the Squad. That includes Licorice Pizza and Dune. Pizza, in particular, seemed to outperform expectations including BAFTA’s broad support of the film. Dune won mentions in nearly every major guild with the exception of SAG (not counting the stunts SAG nomination). Another thing you’ll see below is the online narrative around a potentially weak Kenneth Branagh or Steven Spielberg in favor of the rising Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Drive My Car.

What else is there to say? There’s a lot of hand-wringing, second-guessing, and fretting over the final slots. Everyone is competitive. Everyone wants to get it all right. I suspect these lists will change in the Squad member’s personal rankings before Tuesday morning.

But Tuesday morning brings the peace of knowing. Not everyone will be happy, but at least we’ll know.

Then begins the long, long wait until mid-March when the final round voting finally begins.