Sound Design can be an overlooked aspect of filmmaking, just as the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing Oscar categories can be overlooked awards. Nevertheless, sound design is important, and nabbing the right films in the sound categories can be a key part of winning an Oscar pool.

Before putting that cart before the horse, though, let’s focus on the films that could get nominated.

Sound Editing – The Nominees:

• Baby Driver
• Blade Runner 2049
• Dunkirk
• The Shape of Water
• War for the Planet of the Apes

In the Hunt:

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
• Logan
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi
• Wonder Woman

Sound Mixing – The Nominees:

• Baby Driver
• Blade Runner 2049
• Dunkirk
• The Shape of Water
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi

In the Hunt:

• Beauty and the Beast
• The Greatest Showman
• War for the Planet of the Apes
• Wonder Woman

 

The Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories generally carry a similar batch of films, with slight variation. The Greatest Showman and Beauty and the Beast, for instance, are far more likely to get in the Sound Mixing category than the Sound Editing category, given a strong mix is crucial to a successful musical.

You could throw any big budget, critically palatable action film into the Sound Editing “in the hunt,” but most of them aren’t likely to get in. Baby Driver, Dunkirk, and Blade Runner are the films in 2017 with, and perhaps this point is arguable, the best sound work. Although, the edit of Baby Driver is more impressive than the mix, given how sound is integrated into the pace of scenes. The film could win for editing and not even get a nomination for mixing.

The real toss-up in the sound categories is War for the Planet of the Apes. I think it has a good chance, but the guild awards for sound design didn’t give it any love. It did, however, give nods to Star Wars and Wonder Woman.