The major one is right here. The Oscars have followed the BAFTA nominations from last week by announcing their choices for the year’s top movies and recognizing them across a wide range of categories. The Academy Awards are its own beast, with more Best Picture selections, various sweet spots, and always a few surprises up their sleeves, despite the fact that there is a great deal of overlap with the British film body. Most notably, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water are among the 10 nominees for Best Picture.
Both James Cameron and Tom Cruise’s box office titan blockbuster have received a lot of praise, but neither of them has played a particularly prominent role in the Oscars conversation. However, their inclusion in this list reflects an Oscars that combines mainstream big-budget films with foreign crossover fare, quiet dramas, searing satires, and more.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is in first place with 11 nominations, winning awards for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay, Editing, Original Score, and more. The Daniels’ film particularly shined in the acting categories, with nominations for Jamie Lee Curtis for Actress in a Supporting Role, Ke Huy Quan for Actor in a Supporting Role, Michelle Yeoh for Actress in a Leading Role, and Stephanie Hsu for Actress in a Supporting Role.
It’s encouraging to see Hsu receive an Oscar nomination because she has mostly been left out of the awards buzz for Everything Everywhere so far. A respectable performance for a movie that has a dildo battle and seductive hotdog-finger sequences.
The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front all garnered nine nominations, placing them right behind Everything Everywhere, making the top three films nominated for Oscars and BAFTAs this year the same.
The nominations for Banshees include Best Picture, Original Screenplay for Martin McDonagh, Actor in a Leading Role for Colin Farrell, Actor in a Supporting Role for Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, and Actress in a Supporting Role for Kerry Condon. The film All Quiet has also received awards for Best Picture, Direction, International Feature, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Sound, Cinematography, and other categories.
Similar to the BAFTAs, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis continues to dominate the awards discourse with eight nominations, including Best Picture and Austin Butler for Actor in a Leading Role, but Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is receiving greater attention from the American awards organization.
His autobiographical film, which received little attention at the BAFTAs, is now competing for Best Picture, Best Director, Original Screenplay, and other awards. Michelle Williams is also competing for Actress in a Leading Role. In addition, Triangle Of Sadness received some significant nominations, including Best Picture, Directing for Ruben stlund, and Original Screenplay, as well as a strong showing for T.R., which was nominated for Best Picture, Directing for Todd Field, Original Screenplay, and Actress In A Leading Role for Cate Blanchett.
Overall, there is plenty to like in the nominations. After being completely ignored by BAFTA, Women Talking received some love. Angela Bassett is nominated for Actress in a Supporting Role for her powerful performance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Andrea Riseborough had a nomination for Actress in a Leading Role in To Leslie, while Paul Mescal is already an Oscar contender at this point in his career for his Leading Role in Aftersun. Brendan Fraser receives a nomination for The Whale as he continues to rise through the Hollywood ranks.
Irish favorite The Quiet Girl and the donkey drama EO are up for international feature film awards, and there is a strong field of contenders for animated feature film, including Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro, Marcel the Shell with Shoes on, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Sea Beast, and Turning Red. What a choice!
This year, it does seem striking that less normal Oscar stuff is coexisting alongside the more traditional Oscar food. In addition to being a more eccentric work than the Academy may ordinarily honor, the inclusion of Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water shows that the Academy and the public have come to similar conclusions.
While Top Gun: Maverick received more love for Eddie Hamilton in film editing, a nod for adapted screenplay (presumably because it’s a sequel; the same goes for not-really-adapted, not-really-a-sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), and a nod for Lady Gaga’s wind-tunnel-assisted performance, the second Avatar felt less like an awards juggernaut while still managing to bag Best The Oscars also like a good financial success story, so it seems logical that these two box office juggernauts are included.
As always, there are slights. There is nothing for Till and its actress Danielle Deadwyler, Gina Prince-The Bythewood’s Woman King, or Park Chan-superb wook’s Decision To Leave. There is also very little for RRR. Additionally, the choice of directors, which is an all-male affair, will undoubtedly come up again. But overall, it’s a fascinating choice that is both surprising and very much the Academy doing what it does. The main lesson? An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It and My Year Of Dicks are two animated short films included in the collection. Both have quickly risen to the top of our list of things to watch.
Read the whole list of nominations here. We’ll find out who wins when the 2023 Oscars take place on Sunday, March 12, 2023, into the early hours of Monday, March 13.
BEST PICTURE
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
Women Talking
DIRECTING
Martin McDonagh – The Banshees Of Inisherin
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Schienert – Everything Everywhere All At Once
Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans
Todd Field – TÁR
Ruben Östlund – Triangle Of Sadness
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Austin Butler – Elvis
Colin Farrell – The Banshees Of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser – The Whale
Paul Mescal – Aftersun
Bill Nighy – Living
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cate Blanchett – TÁR
Ana de Armas – Blonde
Andrea Riseborough – To Leslie
Michelle Williams – The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All At Once
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees Of Inisherin
Bryan Tyree Henry – Causeway
Judd Hirsch – The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan – The Banshees Of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All At Once
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Angela Bassett – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau – The Whale
Kerry Condon – The Banshees Of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything Everywhere All At Once
Stephanie Hsu – Everything Everywhere All At Once
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
All Quiet On The Western Front
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Banshees Of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Triangle Of Sadness
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
All Quiet On The Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Close
EO
The Quiet Girl
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
All That Breathes
All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Fire Of Love
A House Made Of Splinters
Navalny
COSTUME DESIGN
Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris
SOUND
All Quiet On The Western Front
Avatar: The Way Of Water
The Batman
Elvis
Top Gun: Maverick
ORIGINAL SCORE
All Quiet On The Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees Of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
ORIGINAL SONG
Woman Talking: ‘Applause’ – Diane Warren
Top Gun: Maverick: ‘Hold My Hand’ – Lady Gaga
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: ‘Lift Me Up’ – Rihanna
RRR: ‘Naatu Naatu’
Everything Everywhere All At Once: This Is A Life’ – Son Lux, Mitski, David Byrne
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
All Quiet On The Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Whale
PRODUCTION DESIGN
All Quiet On The Western Front
Avatar: The Way Of Water
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans
FILM EDITING
The Banshees Of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
TÁR
Top Gun: Maverick
CINEMATOGRAPHY
All Quiet On The Western Front
Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths
Elvis
Empire Of Light
TÁR
VISUAL EFFECTS
All Quiet On The Western Front
Avatar: The Way Of Water
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Top Gun: Maverick
DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
The Elephant Whisperers
Haulout
How Do You Measure A Year?
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger At The Gate
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
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