Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Okay, I wasn't quite sure. I knew 1917 had missed something that a lot of people thought was a bad sign, but this season has moved too quickly for me to pay close attention to all of the guilds!

You're partly right. 1917 wasn't nominated at Cinema Audio Society (Sound Mixing equivalent guild). It was, however, nominated at the Motion Picture Sound Editors (Sound Editing equivalent guild). Ford won CAS and also one award at MPSE, but 1917 also won one award at MPSE, so 1917 isn't left out entirely.

Sound Mixing:
Ad Astra
Ford v. Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Sound Editing:
Ford v. Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker

So there's talk of merging these awards because they're functionally the same now anyway, and what do these branches do? They give these categories a 4-for-5 overlap, which validates every issue people had about not being able to tell these categories apart.

Splits usually occur when there's a movie not nominated in one of the categories: We've still only had two occasions where the awards split between two movies that were nominated in both categories. Voters generally vote in tandem here, even when their tandem votes lead to a dire outcome like last year's double wins for Bohemian Rhapsody. A thing about the tandem wins: When a movie wins both of these awards, it's almost always doing so in the midst of at least a mini-technical sweep: I think Speed is the only movie to win these two awards and only these two awards.

Since voters tend to vote in tandem here, I guess it's fair to talk about them in tandem. Ad Astra and Star Wars are comfortably in fifth in their categories: Movies have won both of these awards with no other nominations, but not in a long time, and these movies don't seem to have the popularity or the acclaim for their sound work that would put them over the top in these categories. Next to go would be Joker and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I think they both have a shot at some below-the-line awards (Score and maybe Makeup for Joker; maybe Production Design and Costumes for Hollywood), but these aren't going to be the places where they get a ton of support--I think even their fans will probably be looking elsewhere when they vote.

I'm seeing some people on Twitter predict Ford v. Ferrari for this, and I'm not saying it has no shot, but I think they're reading too much into the fact that it won guild awards for its sound. But 1917 wasn't nominated for those awards (not sure if it screened late or what), and these categories both have a long history of rewarding war movies. When you add in the fact that 1917 is, if not the Best Picture frontrunner, it's at least a frontrunner, I don't see it losing.