This article contains IndieWire’s past Best Picture predictions for the 2023 Oscars. We regularly update our predictions throughout awards season, and republish previous versions (like this one) for readers to track changes in how the Oscar race has changed. For the latest update on the frontrunners for the 95th Academy Awards, see our 2023 Oscars predictions hub.
We will update these predictions throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2023 Oscar picks. Final voting is March 2 through 7, 2023. The 95th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
Our Awards Editor, TV & Film Marcus Jones joins Editor at Large Anne Thompson on the latest Oscars Predictions updates. See their previous thoughts on what to expect at the 95th Academy Awards here.
The State of the Race
One of the great advantages for an Oscar movie is to be fresh and original. Once upon a time, “Avatar” was that movie: It blew Oscar voters’ socks off in the 2010 Oscar race, winning three out of nine nominations and almost making it to Best Picture. “Titanic” winner James Cameron was thrilled for his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, who won for “The Hurt Locker.”
This year, two PGA-nominated blockbuster sequels are vying for Best Picture, “Avatar: The Way of Water” (four nods) and “Top Gun: Maverick” (six nods), but while both arguably kept the box office alive over the past year, it’s unlikely that either will win the top prize. It’s possible that the enormous box office success of both films weighs against them in the Best Picture race. Neither notched a director nomination. They don’t cry out as “art,” somehow, even though both demanded a great deal of artistry to turn out so well.
The top prize will likely go to the Oscar season’s new new thing, the Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” from maverick indie A24, which led the Oscar pack on nominations morning with 11.
In recent years you could feel the surge of support for “Parasite” and “CODA” after their SAG Ensemble wins. And you feel it on the awards circuit for “Everything” as well, which will likely win the big prize at the upcoming SAG Awards. While this chaotic hit comedy ($100 million worldwide) plays better to a younger audience than the older and more conservative members of the Academy, some of whom may not respond to brain-frying multiverses and floppy hot dog fingers, the actors (five SAG nominations), producers (PGA top 10), directors (DGA top five), writers (WGA originals) and the international voters (10 BAFTA nominations) support it, along with the crafts. So passion, originality, and the moving immigrant family storyline carried by Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu may push “Everything” to a Best Picture trophy in the end.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Allyson Riggs, Courtesy of A24
Martin McDonagh’s “Banshees of Inisherin” is competing for the top prize with nine nominations, and will likely get a major boost from the upcoming BAFTAs (10 nominations); it’s also backed by actors (who nominated Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Brendan Gleeson, and Kerry Condon), directors (DGA), producers (PGA), writers (while not WGA eligible), and the international bloc.
While it has been difficult overall to pull older moviegoers (the foundation of the Academy) back to theaters, Best Picture nominees “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “TÁR,” and “Triangle of Sadness” made modest gains at the specialty box office, but inevitably wound up on video on demand, along with “The Fabelmans,” which lost steam in the awards race when audiences did not arrive in theaters in droves.
After rapturous receptions at AFI FEST and TIFF, where heart-tugger “The Fabelmans” won the coveted Oscar-predictive People’s Choice Award, Steven Spielberg’s most personal film played well for Academy audiences, earning seven nominations, but may have been hurt by being the presumptive frontrunner.
The year’s most financially successful original film, Baz Luhrmann’s music biopic “Elvis” ($282 million worldwide), scored eight nominations with support from just about every sector except writers and directors. Austin Butler is in a stronger position, along with Farrell, Blanchett, and Yeoh, because his movie is a Best Picture contender.
Only three films landed both Director and Editor slots: “Everything Everywhere,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and “TÁR.” Todd Field’s music world drama, which landed six nominations, is jammed with unexpected surprises and will likely take home one win, for Globe and CCA winner Cate Blanchett, for her third Oscar.
Reminding everyone yet again that the international bloc is powerful indeed, joining the Best Picture top 10 ranks was Edward Berger’s German Oscar entry, the World War I remake “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which nabbed nine nominations after 14 BAFTA nominations and five Oscar shortlist slots. Now more voters will watch the movie, which is the frontrunner in the International Feature race, but also a factor in several crafts categories.
After the dust settled on nominations morning, many wished the Academy (which despite inclusion efforts is still 66 percent male and 81 percent white) had thrown more support to this year’s raft of female-oriented films. Only Sarah Polley’s feminist ensemble drama “Women Talking” made the Best Picture lineup, but the auteur had to settle for Adapted Screenplay and not Director, which went all-male this year. Shut out of the Oscars entirely were Africa-set period actioner “The Woman King” and seriously sober “She Said.”
Nominees are listed below in order of likelihood they will win.
Contenders:
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“The Fabelmans”
“TÁR”
“Elvis”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Women Talking”
“Triangle of Sadness”
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