Reference: CAS (Cinema Audio Society) MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors)

• 1 – Sound of Metal (Amazon) – BAFTA, CAS, MPSE – Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés and Phillip Bladh

• 2 – Soul (Disney) – BAFTA, CAS, MPSE – Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott and David Parker

• 3 – Greyhound (Apple) – BAFTA, CAS, MPSE – Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders and David Wyman

• 4 – Mank – CAS, MPSE – Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance and Drew Kunin

• 5 – News of the World – CAS, MPSE – Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller and John Pritchett

*Winners in bold.

To say the ‘Sound of Metal’ loss at the MPSE awards was shocking would be a HEAVY understatement. It would of been like Chloé Zhao losing the DGA, the one place that should honour it out of them all doesn’t. But sometimes in life you just have to accept things for what they are and not read into things too much, and I genuinely believe ‘Sound of Metal’ was a sliver of a way from winning and I still have no doubts it is winning the Oscar. It has won everywhere else and has the best and most noticeable use of sound out of the nominees. If it loses the Oscar, it will be one of the biggest upsets, maybe ever, but especially in the Sound category.

If I HAD to choose a potential upset, I’d say ‘Soul’. I can understand some may think ‘Greyhound’ as it is what beat ‘Sound of Metal’ at the MPSE’s, but I think ‘Soul’ would have had a good chance if it wasn’t split into the animation category. ‘Soul’ actually does have a good case to make. It’s been sweeping nominations in Sound when other animations would struggle to get nominated at all anywhere (except in designated animation categories). Not only that, ‘Soul’ started off with no sound and completely built a world full of sound in a busy city with an air full of music. The mix of sounds and the music from within the film as well as the score is also excellent. It may be an unpopular opinion and I may be biased as I LOVE ‘Soul’, but for all the reasons I’ve stated, I may be routing slightly more for ‘Soul’ then ‘Sound of Metal’, though we all know the latter is going to win.