SAG Preview and Predictions

Three of the biggest guilds announce their awards this weekend. The ACE Awards for editing are on Friday, Feb 26 (tomorrow). The Producers Guild is Saturday, and the SAG Awards are Sunday. By the end of it, we will know if One Battle After Another is as projected — winning more precursor awards than Argo and Oppenheimer — the can’t-lose frontrunner, or if there is any wiggle room therein.

In the meantime, we will offer up our SAG predictions here and our ACE predictions as well. First up, make sure you enter our contests:

The PGA here:

And the Screen Actors Guild Awards here:

For the SAG Awards, the question will be how much of a frontrunner is One Battle After Another really? It feels like it can’t lose right now, given the stats. It is by far and away the solid frontrunner with nothing so far to take it down. It could win two supporting acting awards, along with an ensemble award. That’s probably the smart bet. It should just keep winning all across this chart:

But keep in mind, no movie has ever won NBR, Globes, Critics’ Choice, DGA, and BAFTA and lost SAG and PGA, at least not recently. It’s definitely One Battle’s to lose if it keeps winning like this. For whatever reason, however, all three of us are going with Sinners. Many pundits are, though it really is more likely One Battle sweeps the whole season, considering we’ve not seen a winner juggernaut like this. Not even Argo and Oppenheimer won the National Board of Review.

So why am I going with Sinners? My reasoning is that after the BAFTA, it caused a bit of a culture quake that snapped people out of their mass formation psychosis. In other words, I’d be following the trajectory for other last-minute winners that took the SAG and the ACE, like Parasite. But my gut tells me that’s wrong and One Battle will clean sweep this weekend.

Which means it wins the Producers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild ensemble, plus maybe Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor, and tomorrow night easily wins the Ace Editors Guild Award.

The other chance I’m taking comes courtesy of Tariq Khan, who thought there might be a chance that Miles Caton, even though not nominated for the Oscar, might prevail here. There is a good chance Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn cancel each other out, as likely happened at the Globes and Critics’ Choice. But who would benefit? Jacob Elordi seems like a really strong bet for that. But I have to figure out if they liked Sinners, they will want to give it “something.” I would predict someone from OBAA, but I can’t decide between the two, so let’s go with the No Guts, No Glory pick of Caton.

Here are our predictions. We’re taking some chances here and there.

Again, F1 is more likely to take the ACE. The only reason I’m predicting Sinners is that there is the smallest chance we’re in a race where everything changes in the final act. We probably aren’t, but just in case. I didn’t run a contest for the Ace because many people already know the winners. Not me, but journalists and such. But feel free to put yours in the comments.

Here are the ACE Editing nominations, in case you missed them:

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Drama, Theatrical)

F1
Stephen Mirrione

Hamnet
Chloé Zhao
Affonso Gonçalves

Sentimental Value
Olivier Bugge Coutté

Sinners
Michael P. Shawver

Weapons
Joe Murphy

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Comedy, Theatrical)

Bugonia
Yorgos Mavropsaridis

Marty Supreme
Ronald Bronstein
Josh Safdie

One Battle After Another
Andy Jurgensen

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Bob Ducsay