Gawker's 2022 Oscars Predictions: Everything But the Awards

With each Oscars season, critics and professional prognosticators try their best to predict how the awards will shake out. They look at every precursor award and speech, and piece together their final choices for who will win each award.

To me, this is too easy. While this year’s Best Picture race is a little up in the air, everything else is basically locked at this point. That’s not to say that there won’t be surprises on Sunday night, but I don’t think they’ll arise from who takes home which statue. A much more fun exercise is to try and divine what people will be wearing, saying, and reacting to. There’s literally no way to know — celebrities are so interesting and unpredictable — and if I get even five of these right I will be convinced that I am a psychic.

Without further ado, here are Gawker’s Official 2022 Oscars Predictions:

• Kristen Stewart wears a Chanel outfit that makes you think, “She could do better.”
• Amy Schumer makes a joke about being the “Worst Person in the World.”
• Jessica Chastain wins Best Actress and uses her speech to decry the omission of technical categories from the live broadcast.
• Everyone in the audience is very proud of themselves for applauding in ASL when Troy Kotsur wins Best Supporting Actor.
• John Travolta gets onstage as a presenter and once again makes a joke about how this is not his strong suit.
• Regina Hall kills it as a host, and everyone online starts talking about how underappreciated she is.
• At least one groan-inducing segment where a famous person talks to a normal person in a slightly condescending tone.
• H.E.R. sings the in memoriam tribute. Your mom texts you, “Who is that?”
• Standing ovation for Will Smith when he wins Best Actor (if this were a bingo board, this is the free space).
• A complete bungling of whatever the hell the “Fan Favorite” and “Cheer Moment” awards are. Cinema historians will look back at this as the inflection moment where the Oscars began to really die out.
• At LEAST three montages about the magic of movies.
• One of those montages is about how incredible stunt work is, presented by Tony Hawk and Kelly Slater.
• Several mentions of Ukraine, lots of praise of Zelensky, who, did you know, was an actor! By the third time it will feel old.
• Rachel Zegler gets a huge round of applause as she comes out to present. She fought so hard to have this moment.
• Jesse Plemons just looks happy to be there, good for him.