Oscar voting has begun. Here's what our critic would put on his fantasy ballot

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What will the Oscars look like? After last year’s COVID-downscaled festivities at Union Station, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is planning what feels like a return to basics. The ceremony, set for March 27, will have a host. It will be held at the Dolby Theatre, the Oscars’ traditional Hollywood home, presumably with up-to-the-minute safety protocols in place. As for what will be nominated — well, we’ll find that out on Feb. 8. My hope is that on the heels of a strange, often tumultuous but altogether remarkable year for new movies, the academy will present us with a slate of nominees that reflects, to some degree, the nimbleness and enduring vitality of the medium.

The first round of voting starts this week, and while I don’t have a ballot to cast, here’s what I would nominate if I did. Please note: These are preferences, not predictions. I can’t vote, but I can dream.

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BEST PICTURE

“The Power of the Dog”

“Procession”

“The Souvenir Part II”

“West Side Story”

“The Velvet Underground”

This year, for the first time since 2011, there will be 10 Oscar nominees for best picture. Here are the 10 I’d nominate, four of which are non-English-language films and two of which are documentaries. (Ridiculously, no nonfiction feature has ever been nominated for best picture; it’s high time that changed.) It was a remarkable year with too many favorites; apologies to “Days,” “Petite Maman,” “Licorice Pizza,” “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” and a few others that narrowly missed the cut.

A black-and-white split screen photo shows three people lying together and one playing drums.

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DIRECTOR

On a grassy plain with mountains beyond, a man looks over the shoulder of a woman seated behind a movie camera.

Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”

Joanna Hogg, “The Souvenir Part II”

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”

Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, “Memoria”

I never dreamed we might see a replay of Campion vs. Spielberg, but I hope we do: Twenty-eight years after “The Piano” squared off with “Schindler’s List,” they’re in contention again for some of their finest work. For a while I was tempted to hand Hamaguchi two nominations, the second one recognizing his other terrific new release of 2021, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy.”

A man stands against a white wall with dark foliage in the foreground of the photo.

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ACTRESS

A woman stands looking pensively out a window.

Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”

Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”

Jasna Đuričić, “Quo Vadis, Aida?”

Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”

Tessa Thompson, “Passing”

In a year stuffed with biopic star turns, Stewart’s remarkable performance as Princess Diana in “Spencer” is the only one that sticks, the only one that goes beyond (impeccable) surface mimicry to express something mysterious and complicated about the nature of celebrity. The other four actors I’ve chosen are all, blessedly, playing fictional characters; if you haven’t yet seen Đuričić’s searing work in “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” well, you and a few academy members probably have that in common.

A woman looks through a chain link fence.

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ACTOR

A man sits in a sheet-covered chair in a dark room, aiming a pistol toward the camera.

Oscar Isaac, “The Card Counter”

Lee Kang-sheng, “Days”

Hidetoshi Nishijima, “Drive My Car”

Simon Rex, “Red Rocket”

Will Smith, “King Richard”

Shockingly, no actor named Oscar has ever been nominated for the lead actor Oscar. Make it happen this year, voters!

A man in a white T-shirt sits slumped in a chair.

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SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Two women seated outdoors on a grassy area with an iron railing behind them.

Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”

Kathryn Hunter, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”

Ruth Negga, “Passing”

Park Yoo-rim, “Drive My Car”

Martha Plimpton, “Mass”

Talk about double, double, toil and trouble: It feels odd to separate Plimpton from her equally stellar “Mass” collaborator Ann Dowd, or to nominate Park without “Drive My Car’s” superb Tôko Miura (though she’s arguably a lead).

A black-and-white photo of a person squatting and looking downward.

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SUPPORTING ACTOR

A man holds up his arms in a martial arts pose.

Anders Danielsen Lie, “The Worst Person in the World”

Jamie Dornan, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”

Tony Leung Chiu-wai, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”

Vincent Lindon, “Titane”

Masaki Okada, “Drive My Car”

Supporting actor may be the single most competitive acting category of the year; my next tier of five — Richard Ayoade (“The Souvenir Part II”), Bradley Cooper (“Licorice Pizza”), Colman Domingo (“Zola”), Mike Faist (“West Side Story”) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Power of the Dog”) — would make a strong category of its own.

Masaki Okada, left, and Hidetoshi Nishijima in a scene from "Drive My Car."

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ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

A seated woman leans against a seated man with white hair.

Radu Jude, “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”

Chaitanya Tamhane, “The Disciple”

Pedro Almodóvar, “Parallel Mothers”

Joanna Hogg, “The Souvenir Part II”

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”

Almodóvar won this category 19 years ago for “Talk to Her”; it took another 17 years for another non-English-language script (“Parasite”) to prevail. It should really happen a lot more often.

A woman dressed in black leans forward, her hands on a low white wall.

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ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

A man with round glasses and a short beard with a wall of books behind him.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, “Drive My Car”

David Lowery, “The Green Knight”

Maggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”

Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”

Tony Kushner, “West Side Story”

Kushner received Oscar nominations for his previous two scripts for Spielberg, “Munich” and “Lincoln.” He deserves a third for a “West Side Story” screenplay that, given the well-known, well-worn nature of the material, was far more thoughtfully and robustly reimagined than it had to be.

A man with a shaved head and a short beard wears a black shirt and stands before a red wall hung with a framed mirror.

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CINEMATOGRAPHY

A man and a woman stand on the desert-like surface of an alien planet.

Michal Sobocinski, “The Disciple”

Greig Fraser, “Dune”

Andrew Droz Palermo, “The Green Knight”

Eduard Grau, “Passing”

Janusz Kaminski, “West Side Story”

Mixed as I was on “Dune,” the movie’s deeply transporting images, shot by the redoubtable Greig Fraser, leave no room for argument. Any other day, “Passing” might have been joined here by two other superb black-and-white films, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (Bruno Delbonnel) and “C’mon C’mon” (Robbie Ryan).

A black-and-white movie still of two women in 1920s cloche hats and coats, walking on a street.

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INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Side-by-side photos of two pregnant women in hospital gowns and a man and a child at a sink.

“The Worst Person in the World”

It’s my party and I’ll pick movies that weren’t submitted or shortlisted if I want to, pick movies that weren’t submitted or shortlisted if I want to, pick movies that weren’t submitted or shortlisted if I want to.

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Nina Simone performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969.

“All Light, Everywhere”

“Flee”

“Procession”

“Summer of Soul”

“The Velvet Underground”

A heartrending animated escape drama, two enveloping 1960s concert films and two movies that skillfully fragment and interrogate the very medium they’re in.

In "Flee," a man tries to cope with his experiences as a refugee boy from Afghanistan.

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ANIMATED FEATURE

An animated princess holds out her hand, with a bird above her palm.

“Belle”

“Flee”

“Luca”

“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”

“Raya and the Last Dragon”

Ridiculously, no Japanese animated feature has triumphed in this Disney-dominated category since “Spirited Away” 19 years ago. Mamoru Hosoda’s dazzling “Belle” would be a lovely choice to break the streak (even if, amusingly, it features an extended visual tribute to Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”).