Much like in previous years, Best Film Editing is a mighty difficult category to predict and the precursor season has failed to provide a concrete frontrunner for us prognosticators. In what will be one of the closest finishes this year, there can only be one victor between Sound of Metal and The Trial of the Chicago 7 and you may just have to flip a coin in deciding your final prediction.
The Critics Choice Awards called a tie and awarded both films, so they’re no help in deciding this one. After Sound of Metal won at the BAFTAs, all eyes turned to the ACE Eddie Awards. To complicate the race further, The Trial of the Chicago 7 won there, so we head into Oscar night without a genuine consensus choice. We saw a split race just last year where the ACE Eddie went to Parasite and the BAFTA went to Oscar winner Ford v Ferrari. In 2018, it was the opposite with the BAFTA going to Baby Driver and the ACE Eddie going to Oscar champ Dunkirk. As a statistic, the Academy follows ACE Eddie as often as it follows BAFTA.
But it’s the 2014 race that feels far more similar to this year’s battle. That year, the ACE Eddie went to Boyhood and the BAFTA went to eventual Oscar winner Whiplash (Critics Choice went to Birdman which wasn’t even nominated by the Academy). Just like Sound of Metal, Whiplash also won the BAFTA for Best Sound and lost all three categories at the Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards. History often repeats itself and that bodes very well for Sound of Metal. There’s absolutely still a chance The Trial of the Chicago 7 takes this one, particularly if it does score an upset win for either Best Picture or Original Screenplay (or both). But, in the latter stages of the season, the passion has surged for Sound of Metal and that’s where I lay my hat with my final prediction.
BEST FILM EDITING FINAL PREDICTION:
1. Sound of Metal (Amazon Studios)
Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
2. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Alan Baumgarten
3. Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures)
Chloé Zhao
4. The Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
Yorgos Lamprinos
5. Promising Young Woman (Focus Features)
Frédéric Thoraval
Will win: Sound of Metal
Should win: Sound of Metal
Possible shocker: The Father