When it comes to trying to guess what the people of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scientists have decided to declare the best achievements of cinema for the year, there are a number of different strategies. You can pay attention to earlier wins from this year’s awards season, look at the recent past when it comes to establishing precedent, maybe see what your friendly local tarot reader has to say…
Personally, I’ve explored all those strategies in the past, and frankly, the one year I was the most accurate was the year when I deliberately only picked the winners I least wanted to see win — the “worst case scenario” strategy, if you will. (And over a decade later, I am still mad at Crash.) This year’s predictions did not lean on that tactic too much, because it gets too depressing. Instead, the below blends all of the above approaches for what feels like the most likely way the whole ceremony might go.
Might get some right, might get some wrong. But if the Oscars were easy to predict, then they’d be no fun to watch.
Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
CONSEQUENCE’S PICK: 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
Let me be clear about this: I want to be wrong. I want this to go to Everything Everywhere All at Once, because my favorite Best Picture winners are always the most chaotic. But when it comes down to it, the Daniels’ wild journey through the multiverse might have been too much for the Academy’s older voters, leaving All Quiet on the Western Front as perhaps the less popular but more prestige-y/serious choice. (Do you know how many times the Academy has given the big prize to a war picture? Depending on your interpretation of “war picture,” the answer is approximately 26 times. That’s close to a third of all winners, ever.)
Directing
The Daniels on the set of Everything Everywhere All at Once, courtesy of A24
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
CONSEQUENCE’S PICK: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Todd Field, TÁR
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
It’s the Daniels or Steven Spielberg here, and while Spielberg winning would make a lot of sense from a legacy standpoint, The Fabelmans feels like it suffered from failing to really break through into the zeitgeist. Meanwhile, even those who might not have loved Everything Everywhere would agree that it’s a feat of direction — not just in executing so many genre shifts, but in doing so without ever losing its grasp on its tone.
