While the announcement itself provided a bunch of welcome confirmations and surprises, as well as the obligatory less-welcome ones, the most gratifying thing about the roughly 20-minute presentation of Oscar nominees was our again being able to hear in-the-moment gasps, whoops, and even, for one category, laughs with the lists of names and titles. Especially titles. But we'll get to that.

Before composing my annual list of adored movies from the past year, I gave serious thought to continuing the presentation I initiated in the first year of COVID, with write-ups on 20 favorites from 2020 followed by 21 favorites from 2021. Certainly, there were 22 winners from 2022 to emphatically celebrate, yes? Well … yes and no.

With Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes, and Amy Schumer sharing hosting duties, the 94th Annual Oscars are scheduled to air at 7 p.m. CST on Sunday, March 27, and the boldface names and titles below are my official guesses.

Following last year's “pandemic Oscars” that wound up nominating and awarding loads of titles that debuted on our TV screens, laptops, and phones, it made all the sense in the world for movie fans to be psyched about this year's return to a “traditional” Academy Awards. Finally! The chance to reward such critically acclaimed, crowd-pleasing box-office behemoths as Spielberg's West Side Story and King Richard's Rocky-esque tale of Venus and Serena Williams and the new Guillermo del Toro and … ! Wait. Where were the crowds?