Based on our nominations predictions, here’s how we did.

With such an uncharacteristic year, it was an incredibly close competition for some. We had a tie this year for most correct predictions. Last year, the top person got 82. This year, it was 86 and those two who got that many write were Peter J. Patrick and Thomas La Tourrette. Without going for a deep die, this is the first time Peter’s come out on top in a very long time. Tripp Burton came in third with 81 while Wesley Lovell languished down at 77 having taken an absolute bath in the short film categories. How much of a bath? Without those three categories added into the totals, the gap between first and second place would have been 5 rather than 9. Thomas would have just pulled ahead of Peter in that respect, but the order would have remained unchanged.

In our first year at a guaranteed 10 nominees in several years, Peter clearly had the best foresight, prediction 9 of the 10 nominees. The rest of us only got 8, though no one got the same 8.

As I said, it was a bizarre year and that’s evident in the surprisingly large number of nominations we all predicted, but all missed. There were a total of 12. They were: Denis Villeneuve in Directing, Lady Gaga in Actress, Ruth Negga in Supporting Actress, Being the Ricardos in Original Screenplay, West Side Story in Adapted Screenplay, Belfast and Licorice Pizza in Film Editing, The French Dispatch in Produciton Design, House of Gucci in Costume Design, The Matrix Resurrections in Visual Effects, A Hero in International Feature, and The Rescue in Documentary Feature.

There were slightly more selections that didn’t figure into any of our predictions: thirteen. They were: Drive My Car (Best Picture) (though I’m sure we each thought about including it), Jesse Plemons and J.K. Simmons (Best Supporting Actor), The Worst Person in the World (Adapted Screenplay), Parallel Mothers (Original Score), King Richard (Film Editing), The Power of the Dog (Production Design & Sound), Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (International Feature), Affairs of the Art and Boxballet (Animated Short Film), and Ala Kachuu – Take and Run and Please Hold (Live-Action Short Film).

And finally, it’s always fun to look at the nominations that only one of our predictors bravely suggested and managed to get it right. There were plenty of left-field choices we got wrong, but here are the ones we did right. This year’s best voter whisperer was Peter who got 6 left-field choices right: Nightmare Alley in Best Picture, Judi Dench in Supporting Actress, No Time to Die in Visual Effects, Lead Me Home in Documentary Short, Bestia in Animated Short, and The Dress in Live-Action Short. Tripp once again did well in this regard and came close to Peter with five selections and the only one to get two such citations in a single category. His prescience was for these: “Down to Joy” and “Somehow You Do” in Original Song, Don’t Look Up in Film Editing, Coming 2 American in Makeup & Hairstyling, and Writing with Fire in Documentary Feature.

Then there’s Wesley and Thomas who each got three solo choices right. Wesley was right about Jessie Buckley in Supporting Actress, Nightmare Alley in Cinematography, and Cyrano in Costume Design. Thomas did it well with Kristen Stewart in Best Actress, The Tragedy of Macbeth in Production Design, and Three Songs for Benazir in Documentary Short.

And we’ll leave off on a high note congratulating Thomas and Wesley on being the only people to predict all five nominees in any one category. And they did it twice. For Thomas, his five-for-fives were in Animated Feature and Actor while Wesley also pegged Actor, but also got a perfect score in Cinematography.

And there we have this year’s nominations predictions successes and failures. Now, it’s all downhill from here to the Oscars at the end of March. Enjoy the rush, but watch out for that tree, George.