Our Oscars Preview - Best Picture [2023]

It's Oscars Week '23! Here is Part 5 of our preview.

Top Gun: Maverick [2022]

Best Picture

Nominees

• All Quiet on the Western Front – Malte Grunert, producer
• Avatar: The Way of Water – James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers
• The Banshees of Inisherin – Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin, and Martin McDonagh, producers
• Elvis – Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick, and Schuyler Weiss, producers
• Everything Everywhere All at Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang, producers
• The Fabelmans – Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, and Tony Kushner, producers
• Tár – Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan, and Scott Lambert, producers
• Top Gun: Maverick – Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison, and Jerry Bruckheimer, producers
• Triangle of Sadness – Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober, producers
• Women Talking – Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand, producers

Predictions

Hopster: We're nearing the finish line! As an opportunity to catch our breath, check out the current Oscar projections just one day ahead of the ceremony:¹

Film	Odds	Probability
Everywhere Everything All at Once	(-700)	87.5%
The Banshees of Inisherin	(+1100)	8.3%
All Quiet on the Western Front	(+1400)	6.7%
Top Gun: Maverick	(+2900)	3.3%
The Fabelmans	(+2900)	3.3%
Tár	(+6500)	1.5%
Elvis	(+8000)	1.2%
Avatar: The Way of Water	(10000)	0.9%
Triangle of Sadness	(+10000)	0.9%
Women Talking	(+10000)	0.9%

Compared to last year's Best Picture race, this year's is more or less uncomplicated when thinking about the projected outcome. When *CODA* and *The Power of the Dog* were jockeying for the top prize, the race was more or less a dead heat come Oscar night. This time around, there's really only one bonafide favorite, and that is the Daniels' *Everything Everywhere All at Once*. Having swept most of the presitigous guild awards the American film industry has to offer (Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Directors Guild Awards, the Producers Guild Awards, and the Writing Guild Awards), *EEAAO* has been on a historically impressive tear. **By all accounts this is a one horse race** -- the only reason the projected margin of victory isn't wider at the moment is because of some wonky results from some of the wonkier award ceremonies (yes, I'm looking at you @the Golden Globes and @the BAFTAs). Now is it worth pontificating whether there could be a potential spoiler lurking? Nahhh not really, lol.

Everything Everywhere All at Once [2022]

Isaac: Every year there's a litany of anonymous Oscars ballots that are released for the sole purpose of clarifying the Academy's true purpose. To be able to say some of the dumbest shit ever, but have it be "acceptable" because you're an Academy voter. Steadfast in not bucking the trend, this year has some wild commentary on different categories and also highlights some real ineptitude of voters. But there's one trend across these four highlighted voters in the article. All of them put Everything Everywhere All at Once in the number one spot for Best Picture. In fact, one voter even abstained from ranking anything at four through ten because they wanted to ensure that nothing could get some random points awarded and beat Everything Everywhere All at Once. Actively not voting for anything, in order to keep a film at the number one spot is just flat out wild. I don't think I've ever heard of a voter doing something that... I don't want to call it strategic but it's almost purposeful negligence? But over the past year, this kind of support is exactly what Everything Everywhere All at Once has garnered. Early in the year, many thought its messaging would resonate well with AMPAS voters, but the way that the Daniels direct it, and their penchant for the sexual joke or five, was thought to be a dividing factor. Some ten months later this movie has done nothing but grow in popularity, wrack up awards, and build a mountain of momentum leading to this moment. This movie, and I'm knocking on wood here and not trying to have a commentator jinx or anything, is on a collision course going a million miles an hour to winning Best Picture. Instead of listing all of the precursor awards this film has won, I will instead list all of the awards it's lost:

1. BAFTA

That's it, that's the list. All Quiet on the Western Front won the BAFTA for Best Film and outside of that, it's been nothing but a rousing success for EEAAO. There are a million ways to skin a cat, but there's only one way to look at all of this, and that's predicting a landslide victory for Best Picture.