Happy Oscars week! Welcome to a crazy awards season where three of the four acting races seem wildly up in the air even as one film looms as the biggest potential Oscar juggernaut we’ve seen in over a decade. The last time a Best Picture winner took home more than five Oscars was 2009’s The Hurt Locker, and no movie has won three of the four acting Oscars since Network did it in 1976. Could Everything Everywhere All at Once do it? Yes, it absolutely could. Am I predicting it? Read on to find out.
Best Animated Short
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
This is a tougher category than in most years because the most beautifully animated nominee (Ice Merchants), the most narratively creative nominee (An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake), the most entertaining nominee (My Year of Dicks), and the nominee with famous pedigree (The Boy, the Mole) happen to be four different movies. Usually at least two of those labels apply to the same film, and that’s our winner. So this year you have to weigh which of those things will matter most to voters.
Ice Merchants is probably too poetic for the mass appeal needed to win, and Ostrich is probably too esoteric. A lot of prognosticators are picking The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, which features a voice cast that includes Idris Elba and Gabriel Byrne, and is actually being campaigned by Apple TV+. But despite a lovely animation style, The Boy, the Mole is by far the longest movie in the field (it’s over 30 minutes), and it’s pretty childish and boring. Considering the other four nominees will all speak to adults, that could be hard to overcome. That leaves My Year of Dicks, which is funny, creative, poignant, engaging, and—let’s be real—it has the benefit of a title that some people will vote for just for the pleasure of hearing it read aloud on the telecast. Can you imagine Seth Rogen not voting for it?
Best Documentary Short
The Elephant Whisperers
Haulout
How Do You Measure a Year?
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger at the Gate
There are three contenders here: The Elephant Whisperers has the support of Netflix, and has the benefit of some very cute baby elephants; Stranger at the Gate might feel the most politically relevant to voters, and it has the name recognition of Malala Yousafzai supporting it; and Haulout is by far the most cinematic and memorable of the films, with some imagery that you’ll never forget. The safest bet is probably Stranger at the Gate, but I’m going with my heart and picking Haulout. While Stranger at the Gate often feels like a 60 Minutes story, Haulout is a real cinematic experience.
Best Live Action Short
An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase
Oftentimes in this category there will be one funny movie and four unbelievably depressing films, so the funny one has the advantage. Not so this year, with both Night Ride and An Irish Goodbye featuring poignant humor, and even the most dour contenders (Ivalu and The Red Suitcase) really aren’t that dour. This is the best crop of live action short nominees we’ve had in years, and you can pretty easily talk yourself into any of them winning, but Le Pupille should have the advantage for a few reasons. It most successfully combines the comedic and the serious, it feels like a full film (as opposed to an audition to make a feature, like An Irish Goodbye or The Red Suitcase), and it has big-name talent behind it, being directed by Alice Rohrwacher and produced by Alfonso Cuarón.
Best Visual Effects
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Top Gun: Maverick
Fun fact: Five different James Cameron films have been nominated for this category over the years (Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and Avatar), and all five won. A James Cameron film has never lost this category, and Avatar: The Way of Water isn’t likely to be the first. This is one of the safest picks on the board.
Best Sound
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Batman
Elvis
Top Gun: Maverick
When this category used to be split into Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, there was a trend that the music movie would win for Mixing and the war movie would win for Editing. Now voters will have to choose which direction they want to go, and that’s compounded by the presence of a second pseudo-war film (Top Gun: Maverick) and a James Cameron film. But Cameron films have often lost this category to war movies in the past (The Hurt Locker beat Avatar, Glory beat The Abyss, and Platoon beat Aliens), while last year West Side Story lost to Dune (suggesting that music films are less of a threat now that Best Sound has been consolidated as a single category). That leaves Top Gun and All Quiet as the top contenders, and either could easily win. But I suspect voters will view All Quiet on the Western Front as the more impressive technical achievement overall, and the way the powerful score is handled in the sound mix could matter heavily to voters here.
Best Production Design
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans
Babylon is the favorite here, having won with both BAFTA and the Art Directors Guild. And it certainly deserves to win, but given how poorly it did in the nominations overall, I worry that not enough Academy members watched the film. All Quiet could also win here if it goes on a mini-sweep of the technical categories, but that kind of thing rarely happens much anymore. Instead I’d look to Elvis. Baz Luhrman films have won this category the past two times they’ve been nominated (for Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby), and the immediate association his films have to the visual opulence of their sets should sway voters.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Whale
Turning Colin Farrell into the Penguin in The Batman is probably the most impressive work in the category, but it’s unlikely to result in a win. Elvis could win if voters see hairstyling as an equal element of the category to makeup, but I don’t think they do. Instead I’d look to The Whale, which convincingly turned Brendan Fraser into a 600-pound man. With so many of the craft categories, the Oscar often goes to whichever film had the most of that thing (because every branch votes on the winners, and what do screenwriters or sound designers know about film makeup?). And this year, there’s no question that The Whale had the most makeup.
Best Editing
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
There’s an outside shot that Top Gun: Maverick could win here, as the aerial action depends so much on nailing the editing. But this is Everything Everywhere All at Once’s race to lose, and it’s not gonna lose. Editor Paul Rogers truly juggled the multiverse in assembling this film, and the images of dozens of different Michelle Yeohs converging across time and space are some of the most defining film visuals of the year. Everything Everywhere All at Once definitely had the most editing in the category (which is already an immense advantage here), but it also had the best editing.
Best Costume Design
Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
As with Best Production Design, Babylon could win here, but not if voters didn’t watch it. Instead this is a battle between Black Panther and Elvis, both of which have precedent to win here. Ruth Carter deservingly won this category for the first Black Panther film in 2018, and it would surprise no one if she pulled it off again. But Baz Luhrman movies also tend to win this award when they’re nominated. Elvis won with both BAFTA and the Costume Designers Guild, so it’s probably the favorite here. But unlike Elvis, the costumes in Black Panther aren’t derived from historical recreations; they come from Ruth Carter’s mind, and I think that creativity will be rewarded again.
Best Cinematography
All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Elvis
Empire of Light
Tár
Unlike last year, when it seemed like all five Best Cinematography nominees should obviously win the Oscar, somehow none of this year’s nominees quite seem like they should win. We can probably cross off Bardo and Empire of Light; as the only nominations for their films, it’s unlikely they stand out enough to voters. I also don’t see Tár winning, because it’s just not a film voters will think of in visual terms. That leaves Elvis and All Quiet, and in a race that’s probably a toss-up, I’ll go with the war-torn landscapes of All Quiet on the Western Front.
Best Original Score
All Quiet on the Western Front (Volker Bertelmann)
Babylon (Justin Hurwitz)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Carter Burrell)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Son Lux)
The Fabelmans (John Williams)
Three of these scores are fairly subtle (Banshees, Everything, and Fabelmans) and two of them really dominate their respective films (All Quiet and Babylon). While John Williams always has a fighting chance, our most likely winner will be one of the scores that powerfully asserts itself. Justin Hurwitz’s Babylon score is absolutely amazing, and I’d be thrilled if he wins. But I haven’t heard a score that completely owns a movie quite like Volker Bertelmann’s does in a long time. The deafening three-note motif that drones over the film is so ominous and violent that it becomes maybe the defining element of the All Quiet on the Western Front viewing experience, and I expect voters to recognize it.
Best Original Song
“Applause,” from Tell it Like a Woman (Diane Warren)
“Hold My Hand,” from Top Gun: Maverick (Lady Gaga and BloodPop)
“Lift Me Up,” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Göransson)
“Naatu Naatu,” from RRR (M. M. Keira and and Chandrabose)
“This Is a Life,” from Everything Everywhere All at Once (Ryan Lott, David Byrne, and Mitski)
The big question here is whether Oscar voters will want to support a song from a Best Picture nominee (“Hold My Hand” or “This Is a Life”), a song that’s just really good (“Naatu Naatu” or “Lift Me Up”), or a song by Dianne Warren (“Applause”). It’s tempting to say that Dianne Warren will finally win one day, but she just received an honorary Oscar (so any urgency to award her might have diminished), and she keeps getting nominated for songs that are just kinda bad. “Hold My Hand” and “This Is a Life” definitely aren’t bad, but they also don’t really distinguish themselves, and both Lady Gaga and David Byrne have won music Oscars before. It’s a tough call between “Naatu Naatu” and “Lift Me Up,” and Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance could help her pull out the win. But “Naatu Naatu” became maybe the most popular scene in a movie that was a massive global success, and that’s the kind of thing that this category at least should recognize.
Best Animated Feature
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado)
The Sea Beast (Directed by Chris Williams)
Turning Red (Directed by Domee Shi)
This is the most stacked animated feature race we’ve seen in a while, and both Turning Red and Marcel the Shell probably could have won in most other years. But this isn’t most other years, and Guilermo del Toro’s wonderful new Pinocchio adaptation will cruise to the win.
Best Documentary Feature
All That Breathes (Directed by Shaunak Sen)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Directed by Laura Poitras)
Fire of Love (Directed by Sara Dosa)
A House Made of Splinters (Directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont)
Navalny (Directed by Daniel Roher)
In what feels like a really tight three-way race, voters will be deciding between three different types of documentary filmmaking. There’s the one that fully creates its story through archival material (Fire of Love), the one that completely captures an important current story in real time (Navalny), or the one that kind of straddles the line between both approaches (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed). Laura Poitras has won this category before (for 2014’s Edward Snowden documentary, Citizenfour), and her film is the most critically lauded of the bunch, even winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. But All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is also the most artistic of the major contenders, and this category almost never favors that quality. You can’t count out Fire of Love because the restored volcano footage just looks so incredible, but more than likely Navalny will be our winner here, because the opportunity to send an anti-Putin message will be too enticing for Oscar voters to pass up.
Best International Film
All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany, directed by Edward Berger)
Argentina, 1985 (Argentina, directed by Santiago Mitre)
Close (Belgium, directed by Lukas Dhont)
EO (Poland, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski)
The Quiet Girl (Ireland, directed by Colm Bairéad)
As has been the case every year since 2018, this is among the easiest categories on the board. One of the nominees received eight other nominations, and the other four nominees received zero other nominations. (Though they’re all really good, and you should see them!) The Oscars rarely boil down to pure math, but this race sure does. All Quiet on the Western Front should run away with it.
Best Adapted Screenplay
All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, and Ian Stokell)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)
Living (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Top Gun: Maverick (Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie, Peter
Craig, and Justin Marks)
Women Talking (Sarah Polley)
I wrote a big breakdown of this category for The Ringer, where I argued why Glass Onion should win. But this is Glass Onion’s only nomination and it’s up against three Best Picture nominees, so it doesn’t have a great shot here. Two of those Best Picture nominees—Top Gun and All Quiet—are seen more as visual and technical spectacles than they are as great screenplays, so I expect Women Talking to prevail here as the only Best Picture nominee in the field that’s widely acclaimed for its writing.
Best Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner)
Tár (Todd Field)
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben’s Östlund)
Steven Speilberg and Tony Kushner have an outside chance to win here for their wonderful Fabelmans script, but more than likely this is a competition between Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin. For most of the season Banshees was the presumptive frontrunner of this race, but in the last few weeks Everything Everywhere has just started steamrolling every obstacle in its path. Whether or not those guild victories will carry over to the Oscars is the biggest question of the ceremony, and Banshees could hold two distinct advantages here. First, Everything Everywhere is viewed as a visually creative film just as much as a narratively creative film, while Banshees is seen as more purely an achievement of great writing. And second, if voters assume Everything Everywhere will win everything everywhere else, they may see this category as their only chance to award The Banshees of Inisherin. In what feels like an extremely close race, that could make all the difference.
Best Supporting Actress
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
When awards season first started, Angela Bassett won both the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award and seemed primed to sweep the category all season. But then Kerry Condon won with BAFTA and Jamie Lee Curtis prevailed with SAG, and now here we are. It’s a true toss-up race and all three women have a great shot to win (and I even think Stephanie Hsu has an outside chance), but one thing really stands out to me: the fact that for both Bassett and Curtis, their chances here are widely viewed as a career win.
There are two problems with that. First, as Academy membership has significantly gotten younger and more diverse in the last decade, we’ve seen voters largely start rejecting presumptive career wins (as they did with Sylvester Stallone for Creed and Glenn Close for The Wife). And second, with two major contenders in the race pulling the career narrative angle, that could easily split the vote among older voters who respond to that kind of thing. That’s why I think Kerry Condon will squeeze out the victory. Her contention is more widely viewed as based on pure performance merit, and, as mentioned with Original Screenplay, I think a lot of voters will see this category as their best chance to award The Banshees of Inisherin.
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway
Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
The single biggest lock of the major categories is Ke Huy Quan winning Best Supporting Actor. He has arguably the best story of this year’s Oscars (with this being his first acting role in twenty years), and every speech he’s given so far this awards season has been wonderfully heartfelt, which just makes everyone want to see him on that Oscar stage.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Tár
Ana de Armas, Blonde
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
When the nominations came out, the big story here was Andrea Riseborough, and whether the controversy around her shocking nomination could potentially propel her to the win. But now that we’ve all calmed down from that hysteria, we can get back to the real debate of this category: Cate Blanchett or Michelle Yeoh. In Blanchett’s favor? She’s arguably the world’s best actress right now and Tár has arguably the best performance of her career. That combo is hard to top, and while she does already have two Oscars, we’ve seen voters show a lot less hesitance in recent years to giving actors a third Oscar. (Frances McDormand won a third acting Oscar just two years ago.)
And then there’s Michelle Yeoh, the centerpiece of a potential Oscar juggernaut, giving a wonderful performance that draws on every aspect of her global stardom and 40-year career. Yes, in some ways Yeoh would be depending on the same type of career narrative win that voters don’t really go for anymore, but it’s different when that performance is at the center of the year’s most beloved film (as opposed to a Marvel movie or The Wife). This is probably the toughest pick on the board, but I think Best Actress will get swept up in the Everything Everywhere All at Once momentum, and Michelle Yeoh will pull out the win. And if she does, she’d be only the second woman of color to win Best Actress ever, following Halle Berry 21 years ago.
Best Actor
Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Bill Nighy, Living
After Austin Butler shockingly won the BAFTA Award over Colin Farrell (who was assumed to have home field advantage), prognosticators rushed en masse to join the Butler bandwagon and emphatically declare him the frontrunner. And sure, that made some sense, because voters seem to love music biopic performances in this category, and Butler has been campaigning like crazy. But what if it was never even between Butler and Farrell?
I’ve been going to Toronto every September since 2010 to watch Oscar contenders get unveiled, and only twice have I ever left the fest feeling certain that I knew who was winning one of the acting Oscars. The first time was in 2017, with Gary Oldman’s performance in Darkest Hour, and the second time was last fall, with Brendan Fraser’s performance in The Whale. And yes, I confess I feel a little less confident about that prediction now than I did last fall, but I definitely haven’t seen anything to make me change that prediction. I wrote last September on this very website that Brendan Fraser would win this year’s Best Actor Oscar, and six months later, I’m still standing by that prediction.
Best Director
Todd Field, Tár
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
As with Best Actress, this is a race between giving a living legend their third Oscar (Steven Spielberg) or just awarding Everything Everywhere All at Once. I’m rooting for Spielberg and I want to pick him, because The Fabelmans is a wonderful film and he truly put his soul into it. But even though Best Director and Best Picture often go to different films these days, Everything Everywhere All at Once doesn’t remotely fit the profile of a film that wins Best Picture without winning Best Director. It’s not an unassuming character drama, like CODA, Green Book, or Spotlight. Everything Everywhere is a director’s movie all the way, built from the ground up on a totally unique cinematic vision. If Best Director used a preferential ballot like Best Picture, you could talk me into the idea of Spielberg just being top two on nearly every ballot. But only first-place votes count in this race, and there’s no question that Everything Everywhere All at Once has more voter passion behind it. The Daniels should become the first directing duo to win Best Director since the Coen Brothers 15 years.
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
First, a refresher on how the preferential ballot works: Voters are asked to rank all ten nominees (though some voters only rank a few of them, because following instructions is hard). The goal is for one film to end up with over 50% of the first-place votes. Assuming that doesn’t happen upon the initial tally (which is virtually impossible), an elimination process begins. The film with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated from contention, and all of the ballots that ranked that film first get reallocated to whatever film they ranked second. Assuming no film is at 50% of the first-place votes yet, the process repeats; the film with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and the ballots for that film are reallocated to whatever was ranked next highest on them. This process repeats and films are continually eliminated from contention until one has over 50% of the first-place votes.
Before we get into the specifics of how this may play out, there are a few generalities of what we’re kind of looking for. The logic behind the preferential ballot is that the winner will be the film the Academy most agreed on. That means we’re not explicitly measuring passion or consensus, but rather the intersection of both.
For a film to survive the first few elimination rounds, it needs to begin the process with a lot of first-place votes. That means the films that don’t start with many first-place votes can’t win, no matter how many second- or third-place votes they rack up. But after those first few eliminations, we start getting pretty deep into voters’ ballots. Films that voters ranked fourth suddenly morph into first-place votes. At this point the process has changed, and what we’re primarily looking for in these later stages is the film that will be toward the bottom of the fewest number of ballots.
Here’s my best stab on the type of opening vote totals we might get. Keep in mind that (1) this is total conjecture based purely on my sense of each film’s level of support, and (2) before you decry your favorite “only” getting such and such small number, remember that these percentages do have to actually equal 100, and with ten nominees, none of them will start with a huge number.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 28%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 14%
The Fabelmans: 11%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 9%
Top Gun: Maverick: 9%
Tár: 7%
Elvis: 7%
Women Talking: 6%
Triangle of Sadness: 5%
Avatar: The Way of Water: 4%
I expect Avatar to begin with the fewest votes because there’s demonstrable evidence in the nominations that the Academy members who love high-budget spectacle and high-level craft work mostly seem to like Elvis, Top Gun, and All Quiet a lot more. But if it’s our first elimination, those are the films that should benefit from its vote reallocation. That could yield a second round set of totals like this…
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 28%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 14%
The Fabelmans: 11%
Top Gun: Maverick: 11%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 10%
Elvis: 8%
Tár: 7%
Women Talking: 6%
Triangle of Sadness: 5%
So Triangle of Sadness would be our next cut, which means the next vote bumps will likely go to films with European arthouse sensibility or a distinct directorial vision.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 30%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 14%
The Fabelmans: 11%
Top Gun: Maverick: 11%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 10%
Tár: 9%
Elvis: 8%
Women Talking: 7%
Women Talking received a slight bump, but probably not enough to keep it in the race. I’d expect its vote total to reallocate to adult-oriented dramas or films with strong female characters, which might give us totals like this…
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 32%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 16%
The Fabelmans: 12%
Top Gun: Maverick: 11%
Tár: 11%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 10%
Elvis: 8%
Now Elvis is done, and we’re getting deep enough into people’s ballots where everything will start getting a bump. But Elvis likely had the strongest appeal to older voters, so I would expect most of its votes to go to films with similar appeal.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 33%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 17%
The Fabelmans: 15%
Top Gun: Maverick: 12%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 12%
Tár: 11%
Now Tár is done, and its votes should heavily favor the two remaining arthouse dramas in the race. But again, everything gets a bump at this point.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 34%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 21%
The Fabelmans: 19%
Top Gun: Maverick: 13%
All Quiet on the Western Front: 13%
Before we go on, I should say that these are the five films that I think actually can win Best Picture. But with the numbers we’re playing with, that means All Quiet is our next elimination, which could lead to totals that look like this…
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 36%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 24%
The Fabelmans: 23%
Top Gun: Maverick: 17%
Now Top Gun, the great savior of the theatrical business model, is gone. We’re now really deep into ballots, so its votes will pretty evenly reallocate to the remaining contenders, but it should give a slightly larger share of the vote to the other big steak eater film left in the race.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 41%
The Fabelmans: 30%
The Banshees of Inisherin: 29%
And suddenly The Banshees of Inisherin, which had been our second-place film for this entire exercise, now gets bumped to third, and it’s our final elimination. If this elimination order has been correct, the Banshees vote reallocation will decide our ultimate winner. This is the point in the exercise where you really have to consider what will be last-place on more ballots between The Fabelmans and Everything Everywhere All at Once, because any ballot that ranked Fabelmans ninth and Everything Everywhere tenth now becomes a first-place vote for the Fabelmans.
I definitely expect Everything Everywhere All at Once to be on the bottom of far more ballots, because the fact remains that a significant number of older voters just cannot deal with that movie. But even if the majority of this final vote reallocation goes to The Fabelmans, that might not be enough to matter. With the numbers I’m hypothesizing in this exercise, and the huge 11-point lead Everything Everywhere is taking into this final round, nearly 75% of the Banshees vote total would have to go to The Fabelmans for it to cross the 50% threshold. That’s a lot to ask, and ultimately I expect it to be too tall an order. Even if The Fabelmans takes the majority of the Banshees vote, that still isn’t likely to be enough, and we could be looking at a final round like this…
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 53%
The Fabelmans: 47%
And that’s a result that makes sense. While the Academy has a very different votership than the guilds, we haven’t seen a Best Picture contender dominate the guilds the way Everything Everywhere All at Once has in a long time, and every acceptance speech anyone involved with the film has given in the last few months has seemingly just made people want to reward it even more.
Other than arguably Top Gun: Maverick, it’s the film that most defines the past year in cinema, and even feels like it points toward the future. Everything Everywhere All at Once was a true sensation with audiences and critics alike, and it speaks to our present moment in so many ways. Not only is it a film that celebrates diversity in race, gender, and sexual orientation, but it also celebrates blazing creativity (and I say that as someone who isn’t even as high on the film as many people are). It excels at nearly every discipline of the cinematic arts—which is why it will enjoy significant support in all 17 Academy branches—and it’s perfectly emblematic of contemporary indie filmmaking. And on top of all that, it even feels tapped into the multiverse zeitgeist that Marvel and DC are now playing in.
Time will tell how great of a Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once will be. I expect it to be extremely influential, but that could end up being a pejorative as much as a positive. If it creates an appetite for something that other filmmakers simply aren’t able to adequately deliver on, it could spawn a whole lot of bad movies. It also depends on where the careers of The Daniels go from here. I really didn’t like their previous film, Swiss Army Man, but they clearly have talent and creativity to burn. Can they ever live up to this? I’m excited to spend the next few decades finding out. But nothing will ever change what Everything Everywhere All at Once meant to people over the last year (it premiered at SXSW a year ago tomorrow), and it’s earned every Oscar it wins on Sunday.