Nominations for the 98th Oscars will be announced in 24 categories on Thursday, January 22nd. Ten films have been officially shortlisted for this category, which has officially existed in this capacity since 2020 after previously being separated into Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. Read below for an assessment of the contenders and the history of this race!
The shortlist:
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Frankenstein
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
One Battle after Another
Sinners
Sirât
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Superman
Wicked: For Good
Five of these films have ties to previous properties. Both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water were nominated in 2009 and 2022, respectively. Bride of Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein were each cited, in 1935 and 1974. Mission: Impossible 2 made the shortlist back in 2000, while the penultimate film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was nominated in 2023. Superman was nominated in 1978 and Superman II was shortlisted in 1981. Wicked was nominated last year.
Music biopics often do well here, with A Complete Unknown, Maestro, Elvis, A Star is Born, and Bohemian Rhapsody all cited in the past decade, which could help Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere this time. The same goes for musicals, with Emilia Pérez, West Side Story, and La La Land recognized recently. Ford v Ferrari earned a nomination for Best Sound Mixing, which could bode well for another car racing-centric film in contention this year, F1. Eight foreign-language films have earned nominations for sound over the course of Oscar history, with Roma, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Zone of Interest, and Emilia Pérez making the cut in the past decade.
The Motion Picture Sound Editors announced their Golden Reel nominations, which included mentions for all shortlisted films except for Avatar: Fire and Ash, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and Superman. The Critics Choice Awards gave this prize to F1, which beat out Frankenstein, One Battle After Another, Sinners, Sirât, and Warfare, which is not on the Oscar shortlist.
Predicted nominees:
F1
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
One Battle after Another
Sinners
Sirât
