Who Will Win An Oscar This Year?

This past Tuesday the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards were announced. The nominees this year represented over 30 films from across the genre spectrum. Here are the nominees and possible frontrunners for this year’s categories.

Best Picture: The Fabelmans

The nominees for Best Picture are All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking. While it’s not the best movie, The Fabelmans does check a large number of boxes that tend to get the attention of the voting body, including the fact that it is semi-autobiographical about Spielberg’s life, it is about someone discovering their love for movies and filmmaking, and it has some solid comedic moments. Everything Everywhere All At Once could run away with this as well, however the power of the Golden Globes to dictate awards season has been diminished in recent years.

Best Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

The nominees for Best Director are Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans, Todd Field for Tár, and Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness. This race has the potential to be interesting considering all these movies bring something interesting and unique from a directing standpoint, however considering how wide a net is cast in terms of genre for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Kwan and Scheinert make the strongest case to win this award.

Best Lead Actor: Brendan Fraser (The Whale)

The nominees for Best Lead Actor are Austin Butler for Elvis, Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Brendan Fraser for The Whale, Paul Mescal for Aftersun, and Bill Nighy for Living. Colin Farrell definitely had the strongest year for an actor between The Banshees of Inisherin, The Batman, and After Yang, however the only reason The Whale got any acclaim was the performance of Brendan Fraser. The success of The Whale is hinged entirely on his performance in a way that the other movies in this category are not.

Best Lead Actress: Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

The nominees for Best Lead Actress are Cate Blanchett for Tár, Ana de Armas for Blonde, Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie, Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans, and Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Michelle Yeoh will have the chance to run away with this one because of the amount of acting that she has the chance to do in this movie that really showcases the entire depth of her acting ability.

Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)

The nominees for Best Supporting Actor are Brendan Gleeson for The Banshees of Inisherin, Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway, Judd Hirsch for The Fabelmans, Barry Keoghan for The Banshees of Inisherin, and Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Judd Hirsch has one of the most entertaining performances of the year in his small scene in The Fabelmans, however it probably will not be enough to carry him over Ke Huy Quan’s performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Compounding how great his performance is with the story about his coming out of a 20 year acting hiatus to deliver it will almost certainly deliver him the award.

Best Supporting Actress: Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

The nominees for Best Supporting Actress are Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Hong Chau for The Whale, Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin, Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Stephanie Hsu for Everything Everywhere All At Once. The problem with nominating multiple people from the same movie in an acting category (and the same goes for Best Supporting Actor) is that if both performances are great, they run the risk of splitting the vote. Both Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis deliver great performances in the movie, however they are likely to split and let someone else come through. Of the other nominees, Angela Bassett has the strongest performance and did the most with what she was given in the film.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Top Gun: Maverick

The nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay are All Quiet on the Western Front, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Living, Top Gun: Maverick, and Women Talking. This is likely won by Top Gun: Maverick because (and let's be honest about this and not let nostalgia dictate feelings regarding this movie) Top Gun is a severely overrated movie. It hasn’t aged well (outside of the visuals) and just is not as good as people remember it, which is fine. That said, for the sequel to come back and do something totally unique and have it be this great will give it the opportunity to win this award.

Best Original Screenplay: Everything Everywhere All At Once

The nominees for Best Original Screenplay are The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, and Triangle of Sadness. This one is not even a contest (though not the clearest winner, see below) because of how many different movies and genres are crammed into this two and a half hour long movie. It manages to cross the crazy wildness that the multiverse allows for with emotional resonance in an interesting and totally unique way.

Best Cinematography: Tár

The nominees for Best Cinematography are All Quiet on the Western Front, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Elvis, Empire of Light, and Tár. While it is also mixed with editing, Tár makes great use of long shots to use cinematography to help push the narrative forward.

Best Documentary Feature: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

The nominees for Best Documentary Feature are All That Breathes, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Fire of Love, A House Made of Splinters, and Navalny. While Navalny also has topical significance with the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed does an excellent job of telling the story about the opioid epidemic and the efforts to hold Perdue accountable for their role in it.

Best Film Editing: Everything Everywhere All At Once

The nominees for Best Film Editing are The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Tár, and Top Gun: Maverick. This was a rough one because Tár does a lot of great work with editing, however looking back at Birdman and 1917, movies that utilize long sweeping shots tend to not get recognition in this category and instead get that from cinematography. That said, Everything Everywhere All At Once does a great job of threading all these different and unique worlds together in a way where it never feels confusing or difficult to follow.

Best International Feature Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

The nominees for Best International Feature Film are All Quiet on the Western Front, Argentina, 1985, Close, EO, and The Quiet Girl. As a general rule of thumb, if an international movie makes a solid Best Picture run, it will probably win Best International Feature at minimum.

Best Original Song: “Naatu Naatu” from RRR

The nominees for Best Original Song are “Applause” from Tell It Like A Woman, “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick, “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, “Naatu Naatu” from RRR, and “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All At Once. Largely the omission of RRR from the other categories is considered to be the largest snub so a fair amount of the votes that the movie will probably be levied here to even things out.

Best Production Design: Avatar: The Way of Water

The nominees for Best Production Design are All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, Elvis, and The Fabelmans. Moreso than when the original Avatar came out, people are more understanding that production design still applies for mostly CGI movies so Avatar: The Way of Water should take home this award.

Best Visual Effects: Avatar: The Way of Water

The nominees for Best Visual Effects are All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Top Gun: Maverick. This category might as well be called “the category that Avatar: The Way of Water is going to win” because it is a pretty clear frontrunner in that regard, and has been since the movie was confirmed to be coming out this year.

Best Animated Feature: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

The nominees for Best Animated Feature are Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, The Sea Beast, and Turning Red. This was a tough one because all the movies in this category have interesting and unique visual styles that will ultimately come down to personal preference, however Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio has some of the best looking stop-motion animation ever put to film which would likely put it above and beyond other competition.

Best Costume Design: Everything Everywhere All At Once

The nominees for Best Costume Design are Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris. Again, as with the other categories, Everything Everywhere All At Once has such a wide range of costuming across so many different scenes and genres it will probably win this category as well.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Whale

The nominees for Best Makeup and Hairstyling are All Quiet on the Western Front, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elvis, and The Whale. Hands down the physical transformation done with makeup for Brendan Fraser will cause The Whale to take home this award because of its use of makeup and prostheses to make him look over 600 pounds.

Best Original Score: The Banshees of Inisherin

The nominees for Best Original Score are All Quiet on the Western Front, Babylon, The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans. It is surprising that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did not get a nomination here but it did in Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design, however outside of that The Banshees of Inisherin has the best score out of the movies here considering how well the movie uses the score to build the tension of the various scenes as the movie progresses.

Best Sound: Top Gun: Maverick

The nominees for Best Sound are All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman, Elvis, and Top Gun: Maverick. Top Gun: Maverick probably takes this award home because of how well the movie is mixed to the point where all the aerial action has the sense of scale it needs for it to work. Still, the Academy should revert and split this category back into Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing but that probably won’t happen.

As with last year, I have not seen the nominees for the shorts categories yet so I cannot render a judgment on which will or will not win an award. That said, here are the nominees.

Best Animated Short: “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse”, “The Flying Sailor”, “Ice Merchants”, “My Year of Dicks”, “An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It”

Best Documentary Short: The Elephant Whisperers, Haulout, How Do You Measure A Year?, The Martha Mitchell Effect, Stranger At The Gate

Best Live Action Short: “An Irish Goodbye”, “Ivalu”, “Le Pupille”, “Night Ride”, “The Red Suitcase”