2023 Oscar Predictions: Spielberg and Everyone Else

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Now, back to the show.

Best Picture is circling around a handful of movies that seem like they could win. This time last year, most did not have CODA on their radar as the winner, though some passionate true believers definitely did. I personally think CODA was the kind of winner that sometimes emerges when voters have “frontrunner fatigue” — they’re tired of a movie that all of the pundits are telling them is the winner before they even get a vote.

The publicists on CODA probably knew there was no way that movie could last a whole season as a major Oscar contender. It was seen in Sundance in January, so the strategy had to be to hold it back, hide it from view, and then bring it out towards the end of the year as an emotional counter to The Power of the Dog. It was, I think, a smart strategy. It wasn’t at the major festivals after Sundance and tracked quietly under the radar.

Of course, that also meant it would only gain three nominations heading into the race. That wouldn’t hurt it in the end as it would clean sweep all three awards. With more publicity it might have gotten more nominations, perhaps for Best Actress, maybe a DGA nod. Maybe.

The “emotional alternative” to “frontrunner fatigue” is often all it takes to successfully predict the Best Picture race. Frontrunners in the other categories tend to fare better. A Best Actress or Best Actor frontrunner can often take the lead early and ride it all the way through to a win, despite efforts by critics or pundits to derail their trajectory.

Navigating a consensus vote where emotion is concerned is tricky. You don’t always know what the motivating factors are and they change every year. People chose CODA because it made them feel good to reward a film with a predominantly deaf cast. Also, they liked the characters in the movie. It was a winning story that made you cry at the end, not unlike, say, Crash. That’s not meant to be an insult. Everyone loved Crash before they hated it. CODA escaped that fate because hating that movie is almost impossible.

Parasite was also an “emotional alternative” to “frontrunner fatigue” with 1917. The actors, in both cases, made the difference, since they are two things at once: the largest group of voters at the Academy, and the voters most likely to care what the public thinks of their choices. They’re image conscious in a way that many industry voters aren’t necessarily, though many still are in the post-2020 industry.

Actors want to FEEL GOOD when they vote. They want to have their vote mean something. We’re long past winners chosen for just being good or great. There is usually a push for something else, like making history. This has been true since the culture quake that was Green Book. But honestly, the Oscars were never the same after Trump won in 2016. It kicked into motion a kind of mass panic unlike anything I’ve ever seen and changed the way the Academy votes on movies.

Moonlight winning in 2016 was an indication that something significant had shifted. It wasn’t just that they were insinuating La La Land was somehow “racist,” it was that voting for the movie didn’t necessarily make people feel good. What were they voting FOR? Moonlight, by contrast, was an easy vote. The coming of age story of a black gay man just hit all the right notes. Big name celebrities were pushing for it in the days leading up to the vote, like they did in 2020 with Parasite.

Green Book’s “freak out” led to a dramatic shift in how Best Picture and Best Director have been chosen, as in no white men allowed. It’s only been three years but the streak might continue indefinitely until the panic dies down. This dynamic is likely going to come into play this year as well.

As a result, I don’t think it’s fair to put Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans in the frontrunner position, but that is where it is. So the question will be: if that is the frontrunner, what is the underdog and why?

Ordinarily, the Banshees of Inisherin would be an underdog. But that, too, has a “white man” problem. Why would they necessarily swap out one for another? Maybe because they love the movie? Now try to imagine many of the high-profile actor activists on Instagram broadcasting out the winner of either the SAG ensemble or Best Picture.

Where Spielberg is concerned, I could see passion driving his win for either Picture or Director just based on his career and the place he holds in so many of our lives. Spielberg has been steadily working for decades now, going all the way back to the 1970s. Given the number of films he’s made and the hits he’s had, he’s won Best Picture just once in all of that time and Best Director twice. He might have won a third time for Lincoln but that film was afflicted with “frontrunner fatigue.” Argo was the “emotional alternative.”

The Fabelmans won in Toronto and seems to be a sure bet hitting every major award nomination heading into the season, like the Globes, the PGA and the DGA, probably SAG ensemble.

The BAFTA has been greatly transformed over the past few years, after the Great Awokening of 2020 especially, and has upended its rules in the directing and acting categories. But Best Picture still seems to kind of, sort of done the old way. BAFTA, with five nominees, usually picks the frontrunner that is then upended by the “emotional alternative” in the last act. As you can see, this has only been a recent trend:

2009: The Hurt Locker — BAFTA, Oscar
2010: The King’s Speech — BAFTA, Oscar
2011: The Artist — BAFTA, Oscar
2012: Argo — BAFTA, Oscar
2013: 12 Years a Slave — BAFTA, Oscar
2014: Boyhood — BAFTA  / Birdman — Oscar
2015: The Revenant — BAFTA / Spotlight — Oscar
2016: La La Land — BAFTA / Moonlight — Oscar
2017: Three Billboards — BAFTA / The Shape of Water — Oscar
2018: Roma — BAFTA / Green Book — Oscar
2019: 1917 — BAFTA / Parasite — Oscar
2020: Nomadland — BAFTA, Oscar
2021: The Power of the Dog — BAFTA / CODA — Oscar (this marked the first time since 2004 that the eventual Oscar winner was not a BAFTA nominee)

What this tells me is that the preferential ballot is doing strange things to the Oscar race.  When you only have five movies it’s much easier to build a consensus. Now, you’re not comparing one movie to four other movies, but to eight or nine other movies. That obviously changes how people vote, or at least it has since 2014.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out the hierarchy of the films coming up in the Best Picture race. The films I can see giving Fabelmans some competition would be Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley, and Everything Everywhere all at Once, directed by the Daniels. Both might give voters extra motivation to prioritize their wins with a sense or urgency.

What other movies might do that? The Woman King? Till? She Said?

Even though it’s made by and starring white men, I could see Top Gun: MAverick doing better than expected just based on how successful it’s been and how much people like it.

Either way, here are my predictions for this week:

Best Picture
The Fabelmans
Women Talking
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Banshees of Inisherin
Top Gun: Maverick
Elvis
TÁR
Avatar: The Way of Water
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Woman King

Alt: Babylon, Till, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Glass Onion, She Said, The Son, The Whale, Emancipation, Empire of Light

Best Director
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Sarah Polley, Women Talking
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Damien Chazelle, Babylon
The Daniels, Everything Everywhere
Alt: Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun Maverick; Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Woman King; Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front; Jim Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Actor
Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Will Smith, Emancipation
Bill Nighy, Living
Alt: Diego Calva, Babylon; Adam Driver, White Noise

Best Actress
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Cate Blanchett, TÁR
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Viola Davis, The Woman King
Alt: Olivia Colman, Empire of Light; Margot Robbie, Babylon; Zoe Kazan, She Said

Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, Women Talking
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Claire Foy, Women Talking
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere
Jean Smart, Babylon
Alt: Carey Mulligan, She Said; Janelle Monáe, Glass Onion; Hong Chau, The Whale; Laura Dern, The Son

Supporting Actor
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Alt: Brad Pitt, Babylon; Micheal Ward, Empire of Light; Anthony Hopkins, Armageddon Time

Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fabelmans
Everything Everywhere All At Once
TÁR
Elvis
Alt: Babylon, Vengeance, Empire of Light

Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking
She Said
Top Gun: Maverick
The Whale
The Son

Editing
Top Gun: Maverick
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Fabelmans
Elvis
Alt: The Banshees of Inersherin

Cinematography
Avatar: The Way of Water
All Quiet on the Western Front
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Babylon
Bardo
Alt: The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Empire of Light

Sound
Top Gun Maverick
Elvis
Babylon
Wakanda Forever
All Quiet on the Western Front
Alt: Avatar: The Way of Water

Production Design
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Elvis
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Pinocchio
Alt: Bardo, The Fabelmans

Costumes
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Wakanda Forever
The Woman King
Elvis
Living

Documentary Feature
In Her Hands
Goodnight Oppy
Sidney
Fire of Love
Icarus: The Aftermath
Alt: Riotsville, USA; SR.