This year at Gold Derby, a whopping 9,900 people predicted the Oscar nominations in our predictions center. The person who came out on top was Matt Dittes (screen name Cinemateo21), whose jaw-dropping 80.83% accuracy and 79,026 point score means he correctly foresaw 97 of the 120 nominations. (See the full leaderboard.) Gold Derby’s Marcus James Dixon, Daniel Montgomery, Denton Davidson and Ray Richmond recently got together to grill Matt about his impressive feat, and he spills some of his key secrets in our Editors’ slugfest video above. We also talk collectively about who’s out front to win at the 2023 Oscars in all 23 categories.
“I wish there was a secret formula,” Matt reveals. “If there was I probably wouldn’t share it. Also, I would win every year if there was some x-factor that I knew about. I think I do what most everybody does. I look to the guilds and the industry awards first, especially those guilds that have overlap with Oscar voters. I look to all the precursor awards, Critics Choice, the Globes, all that. Then it’s just an x-factor of personal hunches.”
SEE 2023 Oscar nominations: Full list of nominees in all 23 categories
Amazingly, this is actually the second time that Matt has claimed the top spot at Gold Derby when predicting the Oscar nominations. The last time he did so was in 2014, when he just nearly beat out Denton for first place bragging rights (they tied for accuracy, but differed on points). He was ” blocking me from my rightful championship,” Denton harrumphs.
As for their Best Picture predictions, all four Editors plus Matt believes that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” will prevail. However, they disagree on what movie has the best shot at pulling off an upset. Could it be “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans” or something else entirely? Marcus reminds viewers that last year at this time, “‘CODA’ was not the frontrunner. This is a category that I’m wary about. I’m not confident at this stage.”
For Best Director Ray is calling an upset for Steven Spielberg. “I just feel like he’s due,” Ray explains. “He hasn’t won in 24 years even though he’s Steven Spielberg. They’re going to want to honor ‘The Fabelmans’ in some way and I think that’s the most logical category to honor the film.” Matt agrees that Spielberg could pull off an upset, stating, “He has a huge narrative. He’s super-well respected, overdue at this point for more academy love, and even if voters don’t love ‘The Fabelmans,’ I think he’s a choice to check off because he has that awards narrative that no on else in the category necessarily has. But, the safe money is still, if you think ‘Everything, Everywhere’ is as strong as it is in Picture, it’s safe to assume that it’s also going to take Director.”
All of us except for Daniel are currently predicting Michelle Yeoh to win the close Best Actress race over Cate Blanchett. “If [Blanchett] hadn’t won two Oscars already she’d be a slam dunk,” Daniel says. “She’s been winning. She won the Golden Globe, she won the Critics Choice Award. ‘TAR’ has been over-performing everywhere it has been up for awards. For a film that is so much the Cate Blanchett show…seeing it get these directing nominations and seeing it get these writing nominations, and it got cinematography and editing nominations at the Oscars. They really love this film.”
PREDICT the 2023 Oscar winners through March 12
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