2023 Oscar Predictions: The Best Actress Implosion

The Oscar race in Best Actress was shaken up by the sudden appearance of Andrea Riseborough once enough Academy members got together and decided to push her through. It’s a bigger story than just the Best Actress race or even the Oscars. But I’d just like to focus on how the Oscars themselves might have been rocked by it, or not, or whether it makes any difference at all.

The first thing to note is that there are way too many people covering the Oscar race. Social media is a content sucking machine — it requires feeding multiple times per day. There are still weeks before Oscar ballots are sent out to voters. That means a lot of people are going to need filler. The Riseborough story definitely soaked up the sponge for a while, and it’s still kicking around here and there. Maybe it gets bigger, maybe it dies down.

The question is, as always, what’s the shitstorm weather report? How many shitstorms might be off shore? How big will they be? Will they ever be a Cat 5 shitstorm like Green Book? Who’s to say? It really just depends on what happens between now and early March. I don’t think it’s the case that it will be All Quiet on the Oscar Front for all of these weeks.

Let’s do a quick calendar check:

February 13 — AMPAS luncheon. Here will be the first meet and greet. We usually get a fairly thorough rundown of the vibe in the room and they usually gather for the annual class photo. This is an opportunity for contenders to not just meet with Academy members but to dress up and pose for photos looking glam. That kind of thing has be known to move the needle in one direction or another, depending on how it goes.

February 17
PGA starts voting
DGA voting ENDS

February 18
DGA Awards

February 23
PGA voting ENDS

February 24
SAG voting ENDS

February 25
PGA Awards

February 26
SAG Awards

March 2
Oscar voting begins

March 7
Oscar voting ends

March 12
THE OSCARS

The way I always see the Oscar race is similar to the fertility cycle (David Carr always loved this analogy). Everything you do leading up to that crucial week between March 7 and March 12 is the mating dance. Then you have a tiny window of time where everything has to come together for the millions of sperm to find the egg, compete, and eventually one will fertilize the egg. By March 7th, voters are likely going to know what they’re going to do when they have ballots in hand.

Here are a few circumstances I’ve been hearing about that I think mean something.

The SAG Standing Ovation

This was a phenom that emerged in the Parasite year, 2019. We have to remember that COVID ground the film and awards industry to a halt. But just before that happened, we had a packed house at a time when revolution was stirring. The standing ovation for Parasite when it won Best Ensemble at the SAG was like the rapture that followed the original sin of Green Book the year before. There was a rapture in the idea that they were going to MAKE HISTORY with this film from South Korea that would do what Roma could not: become the first international feature to win. Bong Joon Ho was truly the life of the party throughout the whole season, up to and including his filming the directors he so admired at the DGA.

Then COVID hit and we didn’t have another live show where a crowd could assemble and stand until last year, believe it or not. To have a fully live SAG Awards was a powerful experience, and then came the standing ovation once again, this time for CODA. Again, there was a kind of rapture in making history. That would carry over to the Best Picture race.

It’s a relatively new phenomenon and might have been a time and place kind of thing, but we’ve all been trying to figure out which film might receive this year’s standing ovation.

The BAFTA Revolt

A friend of mine identified this phenomenon in 2021 when Frances McDormand was up for Best Actress at the BAFTAs and was the only actress in a Best Picture contender nominated there. Of course, she would go on to compete with Carey Mulligan, Viola Davis, Vanessa Kirby and Andra Day. Each was the recipient of different honors that year, probably because everything was on lockdown and there were no crowds to decide the consensus. We need crowds in general to suss out the vibe in the room.

The BAFTA revolt was in the refusal of voters to chose a woman of color, or even Chadwick Boseman and to opt for Frances McDormand and Anthony Hopkins instead. In other words, they went against the consensus and against the tide and voted for the people they believed deserved to win.

Last year, there were no Best Actress contenders from BAFTA that went on to win the Oscar so it wasn’t a question. And Will Smith won a clean sweep of the awards, which then of course, ended in the infamous slap.

the relationship between Best Actress and the SAG ensemble has also changed over time. It used to be more common for a Best Actress contender and SAG ensemble to match. But two things have changed that. The first is the expansion of the Best Picture ballot. When there are only five movies, it is easier to build a consensus around just one. The second is that SAG is not just SAG anymore. It’s SAG-AFTRA — the merger has expanded the gene pool somewhat and that makes it harder to predict.

When they matched:

Gwyneth Paltrow + Shakespeare in Love
Annette Bening + American Beauty
Renee Zellweger + Chicago
Viola Davis + The Help
Frances McDormand + Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

And only two of those times did the Best Actress go on to win the Oscar, and only one of those times did the Picture and the Actress win both. That is likely what most people are predicting will happen with Michelle Yeoh and EEAAO.

I would also say that most people thought Saving Private Ryan was going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Shakespeare in Love was a surprise. That means EEAAO would have to go into the SAGs as the frontrunner, land both wins, and then go on to win them at the Oscars, while also winning Supporting Actor at both. That’s never happened. So I have my doubts it actually WILL happen, but you never know, I guess. They might love the movie THAT MUCH. From a stats perspective, it doesn’t quite hit right to me.

More likely, Cate Blanchett will rack up another win here and at BAFTA, giving her the clean sweep. But one never knows how these things will go, especially after CODA’s win last year.

It isn’t that unusual to have a name just show up out of the blue like Riseborough’s did. It is unusual to have Academy members openly coordinating a campaign. But critics sometimes do it. Last year, Penelope Cruz showed up out of the blue and ended up knocking out Jennifer Hudson or Alana Haim, depending on how you see it.

So the question is whether Riseborough can come up from behind and win. Well, it’s possible. Paul Schrader has already announced he’s voting for her and he won’t be the only one. Blanchett and Yeoh could split the vote, giving the most votes to Riseborough. There also might be a push to award Yeoh so as not to give an award to a white actress after what just happened in the Best Actress race with Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis both missing. But really, what will drive their votes is the strength of their films and both appear to be coming in hot.

It isn’t exactly like when Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York went up against Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt, where they split their votes allowing Adrien Brody to surprise and win. There are different factors at play. For one thing, The Pianist caught a last-minute surge, taking Best Director and Adapted Screenplay. That’s obviously not going to happen with Riseborough, but some voters might feel like they want to see the underdog win, or to stand up for her. Who knows.

Who gave the best performance? Well, there is no question in my mind — Cate Blanchett did. But it’s a matter of opinion. Plenty of people see it differently. But given the rarity of the stats situation, and assuming Everything Everywhere is winning SAG ensemble, I think it’s safe to say it might not go to Yeoh — or if it does, it’s unlikely that both will go on to win the Oscar.

Here are the full Best Actress charts followed by this week’s predictions (thanks to Marshall Flores for fixing the chart).

Here are this week’s predictions, FWIW.

I understand that Best Picture ordinarily has to go with either Screenplay or Director. For now, I’m not making that choice. I have three different movies winning those awards. I’m sure that isn’t how it will shake out.

Best Picture
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Top Gun: Maverick
The Fabelmans
The Banshees of Inisherin
All Quiet on the Western Front
Tár
Elvis
Avatar: The Way of Water
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

Best Director
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Todd Field, Tár
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

Best Actor
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Bill Nighy, Living

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Tár
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Ana de Armas, Blonde
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans

Supporting Actor
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway
Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin

Supporting Actress
Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Hong Chau, The Whale
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living

Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tár
Triangle of Sadness

Best Editing
Top Gun: Maverick
Tár
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Cinematography
All Quiet on the Western Front
Elvis
Tár
Empire of Light
Bardo

Best Costume Design
Elvis
Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Best Production Design
Avatar: The Way of Water
Elvis
All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
The Fabelmans

Sound
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Elvis
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman

Visual Effects
Avatar: The Way of Water
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Makeup and Hairstyling
The Whale
Elvis
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Best Original Score
The Fabelmans
Babylon
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Song
“Naatu Naatu” from RRR
“Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
“Applause” from Tell It like a Woman
“Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
“This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best International Feature
All Quiet on the Western Front, Germany
Argentina, 1985, Argentina
Close, Belgium
EO, Poland
The Quiet Girl, Ireland

Best Documentary
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
All That Breathes
Fire of Love
A House Made of Splinters
Navalny

Animated Feature
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red

Animated Short
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It
The Flying Sailor
My Year of Dicks
Ice Merchants

Live Action Short
An Irish Goodbye
The Red Suitcase
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride

Documentary Short
The Elephant Whisperers
How Do You Measure a Year?
Haulout
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger at the Gate