Oscars 2022: Dune’s Most Likely Wins Ranked, According to GoldDerby

With the 94th Academy Awards airing tonight, awards pundits and other GoldDerby users have taken to the site to predict what films and performances will be victorious come Oscar night. One of the films in contention is a science-fiction epic and 10-time nominee Dune, with the second-highest nomination tally of the ceremony.

Although the lack of a Best Director nomination for Denis Villeneuve was widely viewed as a snub, GoldDerby’s odds and its users are still projecting the film to win in many other categories, as it’s favored to win most of its nominations and wind up with the most wins of the night. Nevertheless, whether it’s Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, or Best Cinematography, there are still considerable differences in how likely the film will walk away with each statuette.

10 Best Adapted Screenplay

Adapting the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert is no easy task, as it had incurred the label of “unadaptable” in the past. Though some of the scenes from the book are nearly impossible to adapt, writers Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth did a phenomenal job with their iteration and were also recognized by the Academy for their work. However, the film is last on GoldDerby as users are predicting the other four nominees to have a better shot at winning the Oscar.

While this adaptation was mostly praised, there were criticisms of the story being overly dense and boring, and it doesn’t help that the film is only a Part One and never reaches the second half of its story or its third act. Compared to the other nominees, it’s also been awarded the least for its screenplay and is arguably more focused on its visuals and action.

9 Best Picture

For the biggest award of them all, there are slightly different rules as there are 10 nominees instead of five, and the winner is chosen through a preferential ballot. With this in mind, GoldDerby has ranked Dune near the middle of the pack, having the fifth-best odds at winning the top prize of the ceremony, behind films such as The Power of the Dog, Belfast, and CODA.

Although the film has a wide appeal as it landed the second-most total nominations of all the films, the Academy still has somewhat of a genre bias, especially when it comes to science fiction. It also missed a Best Director nomination for Denis Villeneuve, which hints that it may be a slightly weaker Best Picture contender than the nomination tally suggests.

8 Best Makeup and Hairstyling

With its extensive makeup and hairstyling work throughout the film, most notably seen with the prosthetics for the Baron Harkonnen, one of the best villains in a Villeneuve film, GoldDerby users have selected Dune as the most likely Oscar runner-up, with The Eyes of Tammy Faye having the sole position as the predicted winner.

Although the work on the Baron is impressive enough to not recognize Stellan Skarsgård in the film, his screentime is significantly low since he plays a side character in the film. Conversely, Jessica Chastain plays the main character in her film, which puts the Tammy Faye prosthetics more front and center as a result and much more likely to be recognized by the Academy.

7 Best Costume Design

Dune abundantly showcases its countless and unique costumes throughout the film’s runtime, regardless of whether they’re seen on Caladan or Arrakis, or if they’re stillsuits or otherwise. Despite this, GoldDerby has slotted the film’s chances considerably behind that of Cruella, which is seen as most likely to win on Oscar night.

While for most other years, Dune‘s costume design might have been enough to secure a win in the category, it’s safe to assume that one of the main reasons Cruella is favored to win is because much of the film is about fashion itself. In combination with the extensive amount of costumes being worn by Emma Stone herself as the main character, it’s likely to take home the coveted statuette.

6 Best Cinematography

In the first award that is truly up for grabs for Dune, GoldDerby has predicted that Dune‘s Greig Fraser will turn his first Oscar nomination for cinematography into a win. However, it’s also clear that The Power of the Dog has a fair shot at winning as well, with Ari Wegner being nominated in the category.

With its stunning desert landscapes and breathtaking use of light (or lack thereof), Dune is viewed as one of the most visually arresting films of the year, especially if seen in theatres and IMAX. With The Batman also in theatres during Oscar voting, a lot of voters may have seen Fraser’s equally impressive work in that film as well, which may increase his push across the finish line.

5 Best Film Editing

For stitching together and pacing the 2.5-hour film, GoldDerby is predicting that Joe Walker will come away with the win on Oscar night, firmly ahead of The Power of the Dog in this scenario. However, it should also be noted that the film hasn’t taken home as many major editing awards as one would think an Oscar frontrunner would by this point, so a lot of faith is being put in the Academy.

That faith has a high chance of being rewarded, though, with the multiple big action sequences and Paul’s visions showcasing a lot of the high-quality editing work. There has also been a correlation in the past several years of Best Film Editing winners with Best Sound winners, which is another category in which Dune is more than strong.

4 Best Production Design

For the Production Design category, although period films such as Nightmare Alley and West Side Story pose a threat, it seems that GoldDerby has settled on the science-fiction film to win the trophy, with Dune bringing the tangible world of Frank Herbert’s novel to life with much success.

Being the only science-fiction film in the category helps as it gives the production design a unique angle that the other films don’t have. It’s also helped by the fact that there are multiple different worlds shown with distinct characteristics for the sets on each of them, and these differences being emphasized in the story itself brings a lot of attention to the quality of the work.

3 Best Original Score

After winning his Oscar for The Lion King in 1995, Hans Zimmer has not won the award since, despite being nominated multiple times for his original scores such as Gladiator, Inception, and Interstellar. However, GoldDerby users are predicting that he will finally wind up victorious again for his work on Dune.

With the use of new sounds to portray the otherworldliness of the film’s settings, in addition to the presence of a female voice and the reluctance to use a traditional orchestra, Zimmer’s music stands out among the nominees and dictates much of the mood and atmosphere of the film. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s viewed as overdue for a second Oscar after delivering such acclaimed scores in the past without another win to show for it.

2 Best Sound

In addition to the film’s cinematography and score, Dune’s soundscape truly shined in theatres, with audiences being able to experience its intricate layers of audio to the fullest extent. The Academy had also clearly noticed the detailed sound design, and GoldDerby predicts that they will honor the craft with a Best Sound Oscar in one of the most probable victories for the film.

From the winds, sandstorms, and sandworms on Arrakis to the ornithopters, explosions, and the instances of the Voice and Paul’s visions, the sound designers really helped put viewers into the sensory landscape of the film at every opportunity.  Furthermore, the fact that the score is so connected to the sound design throughout the film helps its chances of being taken all the way to Oscar gold if the score is also rewarded and vice versa.

1 Best Visual Effects

For what is being predicted as Dune‘s most surefire chance of winning an Oscar, GoldDerby users have chosen the film’s visual effects to be recognized for its achievements over No Time to Die, Free Guy, and Marvel films Spider-Man: No Way Home and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

While the other films in the category were also widely seen and partly relied on their visual effects to tell their stories well, there’s arguably no comparison to the seamless combination of practical effects and CGI in Dune. With countless creatures, vehicles, and sand movements to bring to life, Dune‘s visual effects have potentially the least amount of competition in receiving the statuette.