Oscar Nominations 2023

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