*taps mic* Is this thing on? *brief silence, followed by feedback*
Yes, there we are. It’s that time of the year again, folks. The Oscars are back, Will Smith is stuck at home, and for the first time in history, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is taking a sizeable seat at the table.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is the clear front-runner of the night with 11 nominations including Best Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, and Picture. Of those categories, the only surefire win appears to be Ke Huy Quan for Supporting Actor. The rest are, as they say, anyone’s game.
The battle for Best Actress has become increasingly dicey as the discourse between Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett found itself weighed down by the conversation of identity politics vs merit. A disappointing conversation that saw an uptick following Yeoh’s unfortunate social media mishap that left many wondering if she’d be disqualified ahead of the ceremony.
As for Best Actor — it’s neck-and-neck between Austin Butler and Brendan Fraser for their respective performances in Elvis and The Whale. A win for either would be both’s first Oscar nomination and win.
All eyes are on the Best Supporting Actress category to see if Angela Bassett from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will make history as the first Marvel actor to be recognized for performance. Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu from Everything Everywhere All at Once are Bassett’s biggest competition, but Kerry Condon from The Banshees of Inisherin just might pull through as the night’s biggest upset.
Categories such as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song remain anyone’s game at the moment, but as promised, we have our predictions. Below is our official breakdown.
Best Animated Feature Film — Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
2022 was the year of brilliant sequels and there was no better sequel than Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Directed by Joel Crawford, The Last Wish is not just a fun entertaining romp for the family, it also explores the themes of death and anxiety. It does what great animated children’s films should strive to do, in that it makes the film as enjoyable for adults as it does for kids.
It could have been a mediocre sequel to what was a mediocre Shrek spin-off, and instead, it was easily one of the greatest films of the year, deserving of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, even if it might not take the statue home. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio probably has a better chance of winning, but it shouldn’t be overlooked that there was a Pinocchio in The Last Wish as well!
Best Visual Effects — Avatar: The Way of Water
From westerns and adventure films to dinosaurs and aliens, Best Visual Effects is a category that highlights the movies that remove us from the mundane and take us on adventures that we’d otherwise never see. This year’s nominees were full of magic and darkness, heartache and despair, love and redemption — most of all, they took us on great journeys of experience, hope, and wonder.
Avatar: The Way of Water transported us to a new realm of existence entirely, taking us out of the familiarity within the world of Pandora and dropping us in the middle of the great expanse of the eastern seaboard, finding solace and home with the Metkayina. Between the heartbreaking yet beautiful story of Jake, Neytiri, and their four children to the suspense of Colonel Quaritch’s imminent chaos, we forgot to look around us and see movie theater chairs or smell popcorn and nachos; we existed within the realm of Pandora.
We were surrounded by sounds, sights, and almost scent memory (especially if you’ve ridden the Flight of Passage at Disney World). When a film can ultimately take you out of your ordinary and drop you into the story, that’s when you know it’s been an all-encompassing journey in every way.
While Top Gun: Maverick all but put us in the passenger seat for the flight of a lifetime and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever gave us a front-row seat to grief and love in the most awe-inspiring way, Avatar: The Way of Water is sure to take home Best Visual Effects for the 2023 Oscars, simply because being so deeply emerged in Pandora left us almost speechless, and that’s quite a feat in and of itself.
Best Original Song — “Naatu Naatu” from RRR
The Original Song category is an utter battleground this year, with all five nominees having the potential to take home the trophy. The judges don’t have an easy task ahead of them — it’s not every day Diane Warren, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna clash.
As a massive fan of David Byrne and Mitski’s work, I would love to see them win, especially since their song “This Is A Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once perfectly plays to both the creators’ strengths and really captures the film’s atmosphere.
However, I think “Naatu Naatu” from RRR will snag the award. It is just a great, all-around song. It has an excellent melody, fun hooks, and outstanding drum work. The song perfectly captures RRR‘s energy and the emotional core of the scene it comes from in a way that borders on synesthesia. Plus, it’s a total earworm, one of those songs you start singing in the shower months after you finish the movie.
In fact, I think the crowded field boosts “Naatu Naatu’s” chances. While the other nominees are all great songs, they all feel like they fit into the stereotypical “Oscar Winner” mold, being powerful emotional ballads carried by their lead vocalists. Even “This Is A Life” follows this format, despite having Byrne and Mitski’s signature subversive sheen on it. This means that the fast, upbeat, and over-the-top production of “Naatu Naatu” stands out even more, suggesting it will stick in the voters’ memory when the time comes to cast their ballots.
Also, the viral spread of “Naatu Naatu” shows why it deserves to win. Unlike the other movies nominated, RRR had a lower-profile release in America. Thanks to word of mouth, the film and “Naatu Naatu” quickly gained popularity, with many citing the musical scene as one of their favorite moments in RRR. This shows that this track can help viewers connect emotionally with the film’s narrative and characters, no matter their language or cultural background. And really, isn’t that what this award was designed to honor?
Best Cinematography —All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is many things: a superb critique of the senselessness of war, an epic psychological narrative, and an adaptation of a literary masterpiece that did its novel counterpart more than justice. Above all, though, All Quiet on the Western Front is a stunning tour de force from cinematographer James Friend.
The movie scored an impressive 14 nominations at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, won seven, and is nominated for nine more at this year’s Oscars. There’s infinite potential for the film to sweep in categories like Best International Feature and Best Adapted Screenplay, but it’s truly unfathomable to think it wouldn’t win Best Cinematography. In fact, if it doesn’t, it’d be a major upset.
Best Original Screenplay — The Banshees of Inisherin, written by Martin McDonagh
All this year’s Original Screenplay nominees are up for Best Picture. No surprise there, but this award could well go in a different direction. Triangle of Sadness is a clever and lingering satire typical of Ruben Östlund, but it won’t appeal to every voter. Tár is a phenomenal piece, but the controversy that’s come from plot points mirroring real-life figures knocks its chances in most categories outside acting.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert deserve praise for their clever structure and inspired ideas behind Everything Everywhere All At Once. That leaves Spielberg’s biographical feature, a multiversal fantasy, and black comedy period piece The Fabelmans, which it just feels mean to rule out, considering how close it is to one of Hollywood’s most significant figures.
My inkling is that Martin McDonagh will make it third time lucky for The Banshees of Inisherin, picking up the gong after missing out on In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The story he struggled to write for the stage could be the tragicomic key to adding this prize Oscar to the writing awards he’s picked up from other film ceremonies.
Best Adapted Screenplay — Women Talking, screenplay by Sarah Polley
Adapting source material from one medium to another is fraught with difficulties, especially if you’re shifting something onto the big screen. Sure, the bones of the story are already laid out, but the creative minds who adapt tales for cinema still need to choose which parts of the narrative to accentuate, and which to minimize.
All of the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year’s Oscars have succeeded in their own way, whether it be All Quiet on the Western Front managing to soak viewers in the tragedy of great loss, or Women Talking sliding us into the claustrophobic silence of a patriarchal cult.
That said, Women Talking is the winner here as it manages to encapsulate everything that was great about Miriam Toews’ novel and also add that bit of magic only movies can offer. Some argue it is a front-runner only because it’s timely, but as almost every woman will tell you, the forces and power dynamics explored in the film are depressingly timeless — although, as long as women keep talking, maybe one day that won’t be the case.
Best Supporting Actress — Stephanie Hsu for Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Supporting Actress category is absolutely packed this year. While all the performances were fantastic, my choice would be Stephanie Hsu. Hsu’s performance as Joy Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once was a delight to watch: complex, relatable, and brimming with humor, heart, and pathos.
However, this category is ripe for an upset, and I wouldn’t be surprised if either Jamie Lee Curtis or Kerry Condon took home the win. Condon’s performance in The Banshees of Inisherin was breathtaking. In fact, everyone involved in The Banshees of Inisherin is extremely unlucky, as in any other year the movie would sweep the Oscars and Kerry Condon would be a shoo-in.
Unfortunately, it happened to release in the same year the equally excellent Everything Everywhere All at Once. That said, I can see a situation where Condon scrapes just enough votes to pull off an upset since the voting members of the academy relate to her character and thus might have a deeper appreciation for her performance.
I also could see Jamie Lee Curtis getting the award. While her Everything Everywhere All at Once character has much less screen time than Stephanie Hsu’s, you can’t deny Curtis makes the most of it. It may go against the spirit of the Oscars, but it wouldn’t be surprising if voting members gave Curtis the nod simply because she hasn’t ever won an Oscar, despite her being an elder stateswoman and icon of modern cinema. They could do so safely in the knowledge that Stephanie Hsu is at the start of her Hollywood career and has plenty of time to win other Oscars.
So, while my heart says Stephanie Hsu, my head is prepping for potential disappointment.
Best Supporting Actor — Ke Huy Quan for Everywhere All at Once
While nothing in life is a sure thing, we’re willing to bet a good chunk of change that Ke Huy Quan will take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Not only did he deliver one of the most outstanding, heartfelt performances we’ve ever seen — no doubt mining from his personal experiences — he’s already taken home over 60 industry and critic awards (yes, 60) for his role as Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Aside from his performance, it’s hard to deny the appeal of Ke’s story. After starring in two of the biggest films of the mid-80s (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies) he was forced to give up on acting after opportunities dried up, an unfortunate by-product of the lack of roles for Asian actors at the time. After close to 30 years, he’s made his triumphant return to Hollywood, and his incredibly sincere and tear-jerking performance has everyone rallying around him.
Best Actress — Cate Blanchett for Tár
There’s a lot to unpack in the Best Actress race, the most obvious being the neck-and-neck contest between Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh for their respective turns in Tár and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Blanchett has had a more pronounced dominance in the conversation so far, having already nabbed the honor at the Golden Globe Awards (for “Drama”), Critics Choice Awards, and the British Academy Film Awards, but Yeoh also won the Golden Globe in the “Musical or Comedy” list of candidates, and while sheer popularity may only take you so far at the Academy Awards, the overwhelming presence of Everything Everywhere All at Once at this year’s competition just might be enough to propel Yeoh to victory.
Michelle Williams’ turn in The Fabelmans remains the middle-of-the-pack contender, while the underdogs of Andrea Riseborough and Ana de Armas (nominated for To Leslie and Blonde, respectively) offer up entirely different stories. De Armas’ nomination is plagued by the fact that Blonde is currently up for a leading eight nominations at the 43rd Golden Raspberry Awards, making her unlikely upset at the Oscars an infinitely curious possibility. Riseborough’s nomination, meanwhile, had a marked amount of controversy to contend with upon its announcement alone, so we can only imagine how loud the world might get if she happens to win.
Our prediction: Cate Blanchett. Our hope: Michelle Yeoh
Best Actor — Brendan Fraser for The Whale
Yes, Austin Butler did perform an exemplary depiction of Elvis Presley in Elvis, which has been the talk of every awards event since its release. Also, the actor has already bested every other nominee at the Golden Globe Awards to snag the Best Actor trophy. But a very different set of circumstances were associated with the category — and dare we say, governed Butler’s eventual win — and that sets up a very different playground for the category at the upcoming 95th Academy Awards.
Not only does Brendan Fraser give a heartbreaking performance as the reclusive protagonist of The Whale who is desperate for one last chance at redemption, but he has also risen like a phoenix from the ashes of what was considered a career long dead. I think he more than deserved the Golden Globe, but the HFPA deliberately skirted around triggering the whole topic of why Fraser didn’t attend the event and thus gave the award to Butler instead.
The Oscars has no such qualms. Even if we don’t take into consideration factors like how critically and commercially well The Whale has performed, how amazingly Fraser excels in the emotionally demanding role, or how stars of Darren Aronofsky’s films have always been the favorite in the Oscars’ history of winners, the fact alone that crowning Fraser the Best Actor would make the Academy Awards look exceptionally good is enough to justify my choice.
Best Director — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once
In a year where there’s been a disappointing lack of recognition for female directors – and not for lack of great films directed by women – the Academy Award for Directing might still bring some refreshing and much-welcomed change of pace to the near-centenary ceremony.
Not that Steven Spielberg isn’t every bit deserving of the accolade, following what might be his career-best creation with The Fabelmans, but every indicator points towards Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert taking home the Oscar; a feat which could rock Hollywood’s old guard and whose grip on the Academy Awards seem to, thankfully, be loosening up.
Everything Everywhere All at Once has taken the film world by storm, against all odds. The family dramedy redefined the possibilities of cinema by creating the wackiest, boldest, and most heartfelt trip through the multiverse yet with a budget on the low side of $25 million. For comparison, Marvel’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania cost around $200 million to make.
The Daniels are the definite frontrunners in the category after securing a win at the Directors Guild of America Awards, whose voting body significantly overlaps with the Academy’s. But the Oscars are never without their fair share of surprises, and Spielberg could still be walking home with the golden statuette – a win that would serve both as a tribute to one of the greats, and a signifier of the Academy’s unwillingness to look to the future.
Best Picture — Everything Everywhere All at Once
Nobody who watched Swiss Army Man in 2016 would’ve believed the directors of the film about a flatulent corpse would go on to make the top contender for Best Picture in 2023, but the truth is stranger than fiction — and truthfully, there aren’t many things stranger than Everything Everywhere All at Once. The film is the love child of directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known collectively as “The Daniels”) and features plot points revolving around hot dog fingers, googly eyes, and taxes. The strangest thing about EEAAO is how endearing the absurdist action comedy is; I cried the entirety of the film’s third act and I thoroughly loved every second of it.
Although the film switches frequently through alternate universes, at its core, this is a story about a Chinese-American family and what it’s like to live split between multiple worlds. The film made history at the SAG Awards, taking home an unprecedented four awards while the two leads, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, were the first Asian woman and man to win their respective categories. After dominating industry awards shows, it’s likely EEAAO will win big on Oscars night and it’s more than deserved.
The 95th Academy Awards airs on Sunday, March 12 on ABC at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT. Here’s how you can tune in.
