It's Oscars Week '23! Here is Part 1 of our preview.

All Quiet on the Western Front [2022]

Best International Feature Film

Nominees

• All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany) – directed by Edward Berger
• Argentina, 1985 (Argentina) – directed by Santiago Mitre
• Close (Belgium) – directed by Lukas Dhont
• EO (Poland) – directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
• The Quiet Girl (Ireland) – directed by Colm Bairéad

Predictions

Isaac: My feverish support of All Quiet on the Western Front is well documented and I'm not backing down now that it's crunch time! Edward Berger directs an incredibly potent anti-war epic that deserves all of the praise and awards its received thus far. The cast is impeccable with Felix Kammerer delivering a powerful performance in his incredibly young career, and Daniel Brühl continuing to be as magnetic as ever. I really think All Quiet on the Western Front runs away with this one.

Hopster: As much as I'd love to cheer for EO, Jerzy Skolimowski's donkey-drama that won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film festival, there is already a cinematic apex predator circling this Oscar. Currently holding a 97% chance of winning on Sunday¹, it's more than safe to assume that All Quiet on the Western Front is the no-brainer pick in this category. After winning big at the BAFTAs last month (7 wins from 14 nominations including Best Film), this Netflix production is striving to become the company's second film to win Best International Feature Film (after Roma in 2018) and the first of its now eight nominees to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Another notable data point -- All Quiet is the sixth film in the last ten years to score dual nominations in both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film at the Oscars -- but only Parasite went on to double-dip with wins in both categories. Maybe this is Netflix's year to breakthrough and sweep some of the major awards? Maybe not, but All Quiet will, at a minimum, win in this category.

Best Live Action Short Film

Nominees

• An Irish Goodbye – Tom Berkeley and Ross White
• Ivalu – Anders Walter and Rebecca Pruzan
• Le Pupille – Alice Rohrwacher and Alfonso Cuarón
• Night Ride – Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen
• The Red Suitcase – Cyrus Neshvad

Predictions

Isaac: Another Irish black comedy aside from The Banshees of Inisherin, An Irish Goodbye is an intimate tale about brotherly bonding and overcoming grief. Night Ride is another one that has some solid chance as an incredibly well done and poignant short but I'm a firm believer in the Berkeley and White directed Irish tale.

Hopster: The Red Suitcase covers more ground in less than twenty minutes than most films can tackle in two hours. The scope and scale of the storytelling here is monumnetal, though the end-result is as blunt as it is potent. This is a competitive field, but I'm hoping Neshvad comes out ahead.

How Do You Measure a Year? [2021]

Best Documentary Short Subject

Nominees

• The Elephant Whisperers – Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga
• Haulout – Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev
• How Do You Measure a Year? – Jay Rosenblatt
• The Martha Mitchell Effect – Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison
• Stranger at the Gate – Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

Predictions

Hopster: Think My Octopus Teacher but sub in orphaned baby elephants. While The Elephant Whisperers isn't necessarily formally inventive, it is captivating in a simple, uncomplicated way. With its straight-ahead narrative and engrossing cinematography, this nature docufilm knows exactly how to extract and emanate the spiritualism that comes from living in harmony with nature and connecting with our planet's wildest creatures. Maybe this one doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it sure knows how to get rolling.

Isaac: Something that's probably flown too under the radar is Jay Rosenblatt making a second consecutive appearance in this category! Last year he was nominated for When We Were Bullies and now he reappears with the beautifully intimate How Do You Measure a Year? focusing on the father-daughter relationship. The fact that this is a short category certainly doesn't diminish the achievement of receiving back to back nominations and for such great projects as well. Unfortunately, I don't think Rosenblatt will come through with the win here, for a second year in a row, because the Malala Yousafzai produced Stranger at the Gate is about as heavy hitting as you can get. I think the Academy absolutely eats it up as well. I don't mean to sound like its some sort of "Academy fodder" because it is incredibly well done, culturally relevant, and a great glimpse into the microcosm of life it examines.

Fire of Love [2022]

Best Documentary Feature

Nominees

• All That Breathes – Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer
• All The Beauty and The Bloodshed – Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin and Yoni Golijov
• Fire of Love – Sara Dosa, Shane Boris and Ina Fichman
• A House Made of Splinters – Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström
• Navalny – Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris

Predictions

Isaac: I gotta say, this is a stacked year for Documentary Features. All of these are so good that they completely snuffed out on of the best documentaries of the year from even being nominated, Good Night Oppy. Fire of Love was one of my favorites in this list and brought a really cool look to the table with its recovered footage of Katia and Maurice Krafft and its stylistic approach of almost being a romance-drama instead of a documentary. The only thing I didn't like about it was the style of narration which was almost too NPR for the material on screen. Despite enjoying that one so much, I'm going to have to put my weight behind Navalny. One of the most gripping and intense Documentaries I've seen, and one that is irrevocably relevant. The murder mystery genre is well and alive, and now we have the attempted-murder mystery documentary making its entrance into the fabric of the world.

Hopster: Laura Poitras is a well-established documentarian and has been previously nominated at the Academy Awards for My Country, My Country (2006) and Citizenfour (2014), the former of which won Best Documentary Feature. Her 2022 film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, might be her signature work to date -- it's substantive, an effective piece of filmmaking full of complexities and compassion that is more than worthy of winning in this category.

Best Animated Short Film

Nominees

• The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse – Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud
• The Flying Sailor – Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
• Ice Merchants – João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano
• My Year of Dicks – Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon
• An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe it – Lachlan Pendragon

Predictions

Isaac: Its tough to top the cast of the delightful The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, boasting stars in Idris Elba, Tom Hollander and Gabriel Byrne, when it comes to animated shorts. Not to mention its stylistically appealing, cute, and all around a fun watch sure to leave you smiling, which is why I think it'll take home the award.

Hopster: Ice Merchants is elegantly rendered -- it's devastatingly beautiful & breathtakingly human. Fifteen minutes of unforgettable sights and sounds worthy of recognition.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio [2022]

Best Animated Feature Film

Nominees

• Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On – Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish – Joel Crawford and Mark Swift
• The Sea Beast – Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger
• Turning Red – Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins

Predictions

Hopster: What's not to like about this slate of animated films?! There's a heartwarming, family-friendly Pixar film reckoning with adolescence by way of celebrating Asian American representation on film in Turning Red; there's an earnest sequel to a spin-off from a film franchise that first debuted more than twenty years ago that manages to feel as fresh as the original Shrek-source material in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish; there's a swashbuckling high seas adventure that flips the script on the typical monster-hunting movie and sets sail for something more poignant in The Sea Beast; and there's the best live-action/stop-motion animated comedy-drama film starring a mollusk ever made in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. But there is only one winner here -- Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is continued reaffirmation of this auteur's uncanny skills as a cinematic puppeteer. I'll gladly volunteer to be the marionette as long as del Toro is pulling the strings.

Isaac: In a year when, then Disney CEO Bob Chapek scratched the roof of his mouth with his toenail from putting his foot so far into his mouth by saying animation isn't for adults... Guillermo del Toro comes out swinging with a stop-motion Pinocchio adaptation in fascist Italy. It's poetic in a way, isn't it? But not only is Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio an absolute slam dunk, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Turning Red are phenomenal features depicting more mature topics but curated for all ages. I've given a glowing review of Puss in Boots and praised Turning Red but the real champion of animation this year is the King, Guillermo del Toro. If Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio wins here, del Toro will be the first ever director to establish a new triple crown of winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Animated Feature. All this for a guy that was often referred to as a strictly horror or fantasy director, del Toro will be silencing all critics and establishing himself firmly as the film medium chameleon, and a masterful one at that.