Awards Outlook - Taking A Look At The Best Picture, Director, And Screenplay Oscar Categories
Photo from Netflix
Awards analysis is provided by Sean from @MathTeacherMovies.
One week from now will be the final predictions for all of the categories so just before then it felt prudent to check on the above the line awards of Best Picture, Best Director and the two Best Screenplays categories.
Both screenplay categories are very hard to predict between two final movies. In Best Original Screenplay, The Banshees of Inisherin has been the favorite for most of the season as it would help Martin McDonagh finally win an above the line Oscar and it would also be a way to honor the film as it will probably fall short of the Best Picture win. However, the popularity of Everything Everywhere All at Once continues to rise and there is a chance that it could grab several awards including for Original Screenplay which often honors unique movies like this one.
The BAFTAs are not the perfect one to one predictions with the Oscars, but All Quiet on the Western Front did insanely well last week including a win for Best Adapted Screenplay. The frontrunner before this was Women Talking and still will most likely stand to win as a welcome back for writer Sarah Polley as well as the film being nominated for Best Picture. However, it was only nominated for Best Picture and Screenplay, while All Quiet on the Western Front has many more nominations. At this point it is between the two of these but Women Talking probably still gets the edge.
For almost the entire season, Steven Speilberg was given a clear pathway to win Best Director for The Fabelmans and yet the popularity of that film has begun to slow and the popularity of Everything Everywhere All at Once has only risen. The Daniels created something truly wonderful in that film and after winning the DGA it seems like they are on a path to win for this film. While people think Speilberg is due as he hasn’t won an Oscar in a while, he still has two director wins so he is not exactly Martin Scorsese in the early aughts.
The Banshees of Inisherin has seemed to fall out of favor for Best Picture after its poor showing at the BAFTAs where that film should have had a clear win. Meanwhile, All Quiet on the Western Front has an amazing showing at the BAFTAs and could threaten for a win, but it does not seem like it is enough momentum to cross that finish line first. Tom Cruise was given a lot of praise at the Oscars Luncheon for Top Gun: Maverick and with the preferential ballot there is a chance that could win. However, all signs point to one particular movie.
It’s often the case that the front runner for Best Picture usually falls out of favor and another film plays spoiler but there hasn’t been a film ready for that position and this year’s front runner, Everything Everywhere All at Once, has continued to rise in popularity. It has become a huge hit of the guilds and while some may consider it to be divisive where older audiences may turn their nose at it, that just has not seemed to happen.
This has been one of the hardest Oscar years to predict which has made it also one of the most stressful but, more importantly, it also makes it one of the most exciting seasons.