We're polling Team Film Experience on where the Oscar race stands. This week, Best Picture and the Oscar shortlisted categories.
Both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and All Quiet on the Western Front received major boosts from the Oscar shortlists.
The Oscars announced the shortlists for ten categories on Wednesday, December 21st. Both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and All Quiet on the Western Front dominated the mentions, appearing in five categories each. How does this affect the Oscar race? Our team of writers updated their predictions in Best Picture and seven of the shortlisted categories (minus the shorts for now). Click for our predictions after the jump...
The Team
Before we jump into the categories, let's quickly recap which writers are contributing to these predictions.
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A.B. = Abe Fried-Tanzer
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B.C. = Baby Clyde
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B.M. = Ben Miller
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C.J. = Chris James
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C.A. = Cláudio Alves
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E.B. = Eric Blume
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E.C. = Eurocheese
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E.G. = Elisa Giudici
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G.D. = Glenn Dunks
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N.R. = Nathaniel Rogers (and you can see all his individual charts here)
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N.T. = Nick Taylor
For more about the Film Experience team, visit the About section.
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BEST PICTURE
We have a new leader in Best Picture. In fact, we have quite a race for the top and a clear top five. The Fabelmans dropped to third place as Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Banshees of Inisherin overtook it. The poor box office performance of The Fabelmans likely cost it the top spot, while EEAAO is still the indie hit of the year and Banshees had a visibility boost after premiering on HBOMax. Blockbusters Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water both have number one votes as well if the Academy decides to go populist. All members of the team at least agree, these five movies will make the top lineup.
In the bottom half of the predicted lineup, Elvis continues to climb the chart while Tár and Babylon hang on. The late release of Women Talking seems to be causing problems, as it dropped two spots to number seven. The most substantial jump of the week belongs to All Quiet on the Western Front. After its stellar run in the shortlist announcement, the war remake has cracked the top ten for the first time. Could this be Netflix’s chief horse of the awards season?
Dropping out of the top 10 is Glass Onion, which dips down to number 11. If its Netflix holiday release causes a great deal of commotion, it could easily find itself back in the predictions. The biggest gain belongs to India’s epic RRR, which continues to amass critical support in precursors. Most other films stayed fairly stagnant, with Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Empire of Light and The Whale experiencing the sharpest drops.
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BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
The team did a great job predicting the shortlist. All of the films that received votes two weeks ago made the fifteen film wide shortlist. So how did that change the race?
Germany’s All Quiet on the Western Front cemented itself as the frontrunner after making it onto five shortlists. Belgium’s Close, which will be distributed by A24, swapped places with South Korea’s Decision to Leave. Both should be relatively safe for a nomination (but you never know in this category). Amazon’s Argentina 1985 stayed solid in fourth place, while a new movie rocketed up the charts. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest, Bardo, has received mixed reviews but since appearing on the shortlist, many of the writers felt more confident putting it in their predictions, given the Academy's past love for Iñárritu films.
Similarly, Poland’s EO gained traction after making the shortlist. It was just one point away from Bardo, which was a strong boost after our initial predictions. Other lower profile films that made the lineup dropped a bit, such as Denmark’s Holy Spider, Pakistan’s Joyland, France’s Saint Omer and Austria’s Corsage. This is the first time the following movies received votes - Ireland’s The Quiet Girl, Cambodia’s Return to Seoul and India’s Last Film Show. The only films to receive no support were Morocco’s The Blue Caftan (the best title of the bunch) and Sweden’s Cairo Conspiracy.
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BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The biggest omission from the shortlist was Amazon’s high profile Mars rover documentary, Good Night Oppy, which was in fourth place on our last predictions. The top three stayed the same, with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Fire at Love and Navalny leading. With Oppy out of the running, almost all the other films shifted up one spot, with All That Breathes and The Territory cracking the predicted lineup.
It’s worth noting that the only other documentary to show up on an additional shortlist was the David Bowie documentary, Moonage Daydream, which is in contention for Best Sound. Among new entries to the field, Bad Axe, A House Made of Splinters, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song and Last Flight Home all received votes. Only Children of the Mist and Hidden Letters received zero predictive mentions from the team.
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BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
The Makeup & Hairstyling category is where you will often see the odd lone nominee (think Border, Click or The 100-Year-Old Man Who Jumped Out of the Window and Disappeared). At the moment, the team predicts the branch will go mostly with Oscar favorites. The Whale is the favorite in the category right now, with Elvis as the potential spoiler. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also got a first place vote and is in a solid third place position.
The Batman, Babylon and All Quiet on the Western Front are fighting for the fourth and fifth slots in the category. Each has very different pros and cons. The Batman touts the Penguin prosthetic work, but will they nominate two superhero films? Babylon has many showy looks, but does it scream for a nomination? There’s really strong war makeup in All Quiet on the Western Front, but the branch hasn’t gone for war movies much before. There’s also a dark horse chance they’ll go for the divisive Marilyn Monroe film Blonde or for the body horror of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. Some even believe they’ll go for David O. Russell’s bomb Amsterdam, which has a lot of 1930s hair work and some facial scarring makeup for Christian Bale. Only Will Smith’s slavery drama, Emancipation, received zero predictive votes.
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BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Fabelmans may no longer be at the top of the Best Picture chart, but it is the favorite to win Best Original Score. John Williams will likely earn his record-setting 52nd Oscar nomination this year for Spielberg’s drama and this could be his sixth win. His toughest competition could be from two previous winners - Justin Hurwitz for Babylon and Hildur Guðnadóttir for Women Talking. As a solid fourth place, Alexandre Desplat looks to add yet another nomination to his impressive tally for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.
Things get dicey when it comes to the fifth slot. Right now, Avatar: The Way of Water is expected to get a nomination. The original film was composed by James Horner, who has since passed away. This sequel is composed by Simon Franglen, potentially our only first-time nominee in the category this year. There’s also a path to a nomination for fellow Best Picture contenders like The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front and Everything Everywhere All At Once. We also have Ludwig Göransson in contention for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, after winning this category for the first film.
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BEST ORIGINAL SONG
The battle of the pop divas might be crashed by some Bollywood magic. This category was long thought to be Rihanna versus Lady Gaga, who each had new hit songs from the biggest blockbusters of the year. However, RRR continues to gain steam in the awards race and its high energy original song “Naatu Naatu” now holds a slight lead in predictions. The only other song to make it onto every writer’s top 7 ranking is “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, which recently received a Golden Globe nomination.
There are other big names in the Original Song race. Right now, Rita Wilson is predicted to earn a nomination for her song “Til You’re Home” from A Man Called Otto, also sung by Sebastián Yatra who was nominated last year for “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto. Just outside the top five are Taylor Swift (for “Carolina” from Where The Crawdads Sing), The Weeknd (“Nothing Is Lost” from Avatar: The Way of Water) and LCD Soundsystem (“New Body Rhumba” from White Noise). Not all marquee names are predicted to do well this year. Selena Gomez, Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell all received zero votes for their songs from Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me and Spirited.
Two past nominees could potentially crash the race like they have before. This year’s Honorary Oscar winner Diane Warren contends for “Applause” from the omnibus film Tell It Like a Woman. After thirteen nominations (often for films that otherwise are not in the Oscar conversation), never bet against Warren. J. Ralph has also been nominated three times for songs from documentaries, such as Chasing Ice, Racing Extinction and Jim: The James Foley Story. This year, his song “Dust & Ash” from The Voice of Dust and Ash has made it to the Original Song shortlist. The song is also sung by Norah Jones, who previously performed the nominated song “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from Ted.
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BEST SOUND
Blockbusters lead the pack for the Best Sound race. Top Gun: Maverick is predicted to win the category by six of our nine writers. It faces stiff competition from Avatar: The Way of Water, which has the support of two writers for first place. Both sequels are trying to avenge their previous entries, which lost the sound categories in 1986 and 2009 respectively.
It’s hard to think of two more different genres than musicals and war films. Yet, both are favorites of the sound branch. This bodes well for both Elvis and All Quiet on the Western Front, which are in fourth and fifth place respectively. Adding in Babylon, which received the top vote from one writer, each film in the top 5 made it on every writer’s ranked list of 7.
So what has the greatest chance of being a potential spoiler? If Everything Everywhere All At Once can make it into the race, it would signal strong cross-branch support for the Best Picture hopeful. Other blockbusters like The Batman and Wakanda Forever could also round out the category. Bringing up the rear are the David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream (which would be the second documentary nominated in this category after Woodstock in 1970) and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.;)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar: The Way of Water looks to follow in the original film’s footsteps in winning the Visual Effects Oscar, as it is unanimously placed at number 1 by all writers. The film represents yet another groundbreaking achievement in the field for a James Cameron film. His films have won this award five previous times (Avatar, Titanic, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss and Aliens). The only other film to appear on all writers’ lists was Top Gun: Maverick. Of the superhero entries in this category, The Batman and Wakanda Forever look to outperform Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, even though the previous Doctor Strange film was nominated here and the previous Black Panther film was snubbed.
There are other non-blockbuster related films that made it onto the shortlist of ten for this category. Nope is predicted to make it into the field for its beautiful blend of horror and science fiction. Meanwhile, All Quiet on the Western Front and the cave rescue film Thirteen Lives could be possible spoilers for one of the final slots in the category. Two very different, yet maligned, blockbusters round out the shortlist - Jurassic World: Dominion and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.
Where do you think the race stands as of now? Let us know in the comments below.
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