Marc Glassman’s Full 2023 Oscars Predictions

 

Oscars Predictions 2023

By Marc Glassman

 

Here are my choices for this year’s Oscars. Maybe this will be a vintage year for me. You never can tell!

 

Let’s start with the top award. 

 

Best Picture

My Winner: The Fabelmans

 

Best Picture

NOMINEES

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

 

I’d love it if Women Talking won but we know that won’t happen. Frankly, even having Top Gun: Maverick or  the new Avatar win would be funny in a freakish way. But let’s be serious. Despite the many nominees, the winner will either be All Quiet, Everything Everywhere or The Fabelmans. Each represents something meaningful and different. All Quiet is about the horrors of war and has contemporary resonance because tanks and brutal fighting in towns and fields are happening now in Ukraine. Everything Everywhere is so computer and editing savvy, we can say that the film represents the digital future of movies. The Fabelmans is an old fashioned film set in a time when a young director learned how to shoot and edit on celluloid. It’s the glorious past. What will win? I’m going with The Fabelmans but the other two would also be great choices.

 

Next, Best Director

The Winner: The Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert)

 

Who is the Best Director?

Best Director

NOMINEES

Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Todd Field, Tar

Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

 

Great as they all are, this comes down to a race between the quirky Anglo-Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh, the quicksilver f/x heavy duo of the Daniels and the legendary auteur Spielberg. I suspect that McDonagh will win a screenplay prize, leaving the young futuristic Daniels fighting it out with a guy who was the hottest property in the Seventies, Spielberg. I think the Academy will acknowledge the new kids on the block—and, yes, I know that’s a dated reference.

 

Best female actor 

The Winner: Cate Blanchett

 

Leading Actress

NOMINEES

CATE BLANCHETT

Tár

ANA DE ARMAS

Blonde

ANDREA RISEBOROUGH

To Leslie

MICHELLE WILLIAMS

The Fabelmans

MICHELLE YEOH

Everything Everywhere All at Once

 

All the candidates are excellent but the selection is controversial. There were two amazing performance by Black actors, Viola Davis in The Woman King and Danielle Deadwyler in Till, and that neither was nominated has upset many people. Bearing the brunt of the anger is Andrea Riseborough, whose nomination came from a late swell of support from Oscar taste makers. There is diversity in the category with the Latina actress Ana de Armas doing a mind-spinning interpretation of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde and the legendary Asian performer Michelle Yeoh garnering deserved praise as the matriarch in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeoh is a potential winner, along with Michelle Williams playing the lovable eccentric mom in Spielberg’s The Fablemans. But I’m going for Cate Blanchett’s towering performance as an orchestra conductor in Tár to win the Oscar.

 

Leading Actress in a Supporting Role

The Winner: Angela Bassett

 

NOMINEES

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

 

This is another great group of performances. I think the brilliant acting by Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere will cancel each other and Hong Chau isn’t quite Oscar material. That leaves Kerry Condon in Banshees and Angela Bassett in Wakanda Forever. Both are Oscar worthy but let’s pick Bassett for a great acting job and, yes, for inclusion.

 

Best leading actor

The Winner: Brendan Fraser

 

Leading Actor

NOMINEES

AUSTIN BUTLER

Elvis

COLIN FARRELL

The Banshees of Inisherin

BRENDAN FRASER

The Whale

PAUL MESCAL

Aftersun

BILL NIGHY

Living

 

My personal choice would be Bill Nighy for his understated performance as a dying civil servant in Living. Paul Mescal is the new “it boy” in England but he’s too quiet in Aftersun to attract Academy attention. It comes down to Austin Butler’s convincing interpretation of the rock’n’roll King in Elvis, Colin Farrell’s brilliant rendition of a slightly dim Irishman in Banshees and Brendan Fraser as a dying teacher in The Whale. Farrell is brilliant in Banshees and Butler is more than okay in Elvis but Fraser’s sensitive performance puts him over the top as the deserving Oscar winner. 

 

Actor in a Supporting Role

The Winner: Ke Huy Quan 

 

Lead Actor in a Supporting Role

NOMINEES

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

 

While all of the performers were brilliant, winning the Oscar often comes down to a compelling narrative. Judd Hirsch is 87, and totally commands his scene as the eccentric uncle in The Fabelmans.  It would be like giving him a lifetime achievement award. Ke Huy Quan has a great storyline, too. Despite a starring role in an Indiana Jones film as a kid, Quan wasn’t cast in parts because he is Asian-American. His wonderful performance in Everything Everywhere is a true middle-age comeback. Will he get an Oscar to cap it off?  I think it’s likely. 

 

International Feature Film

The Winner: All Quiet

 

THE NOMINEES ARE

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Germany

ARGENTINA, 1985

Argentina

CLOSE

Belgium

EO

Poland

THE QUIET GIRL

Ireland

 

As usual, all of these films are high quality selections, chosen as the best films from their home organizations, such as our own Telefilm Canada. I was very impressed with all of them, particularly Belgium’s Close, a moving teenage suicide drama, but it hasn’t been winning at  other awards ceremonies. The buzz has been around All Quiet on the Western Front, the first German feature adaptation of the acclaimed anti-war novel. The original film version of the book was made in Hollywood in 1930 and it’s a classic, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Nazis banned the book and the film after they came to power. Nearly 100 years later, this version is stunningly realized. At the British Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, it won seven prizes, including best film. Its evocation of the brutality of hand to hand combat and tank warfare gives us a startling insight into what is going on in Ukraine right now. All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t just history. The tragedy of warfare continues today.

 

Documentary Feature Film

The Winner: All That Breathes

 

THE NOMINEES ARE:

ALL THAT BREATHES

Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED

Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin and Yoni Golijov

FIRE OF LOVE

Sara Dosa, Shane Boris and Ina Fichman

A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS

Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström

NAVALNY

Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris

 

This is a stunning group of films. Navalny, by Canada’s Daniel Roher, is a great piece of investigative journalism highlighted by an amazing “gotcha” moment. Fire of Love has never-to-be-forgotten images of volcanic eruptions. A House Made of Splinters is an intimate film about children in Ukraine. But the two likely winners are All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Laura Poitras’ moving account of radical artist and photographer Nan Goldin’s successful fight to bring down the opioid producing Sackler family in the art world, and All That Breathes, a deeply humanist look at two brothers in India, who have dedicated their lives to a bird sanctuary in Delhi. I’d love All the Beauty and the Bloodshed to win but I think it’s still too controversial so the winner will be the very deserving All that Breathes.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Winner: All Quiet’s Berger, Paterson & Stokell

 

NOMINEES

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Screenplay – Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson & Ian Stokell

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Written by Rian Johnson

LIVING

Written by Kazuo Ishiguro

TOP GUN: MAVERICK

Screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie; Story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks

WOMEN TALKING

Screenplay by Sarah Polley

 

It’s rare that you get a Nobel Prize winner in this category but Kazuo Ishiguro, who is up for the Oscar for Living his adaptation of the Kurosawa classic, shows such understanding of Japanese and British cultures that it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it as well. As a Canadian, one must point out the wonderful work Sarah Polley did in turning Women Talking, Miriam Toews’ philosophical novel, into a dramatic film. But the winner will come between Rian Johnson’s slick, brilliant satirical mystery Glass Onion and All Quiet on the Western Front. Comedy always loses out to tragedy so let’s go with All Quiet as the winner.

If they’re not adapted, then screenplay writers get to create material. Once again, there are some very good scripts and films here.

 

Best Original Screenplay

The Winner: Martin McDonagh

 

NOMINEES

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Written by Martin McDonagh

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

THE FABELMANS

Written by Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner

TÁR 

Written by Todd Field

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Written by Ruben Östlund

 

This category will come down to a three-horse race between The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans and Everything, Everywhere All At Once. While they all have fine scripts, I think Everything, Everywhere will be acknowledged for acting and editing and The Fabelmans for directing. That leaves the superb playwright Martin McDonagh, and his Banshees, which has already won at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as the Oscar winner. 

 

Animated Feature Film category

The Winner: Del Toro’s Pinocchio

 

NOMINEES

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO

Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON

Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

Joel Crawford and Mark Swift

THE SEA BEAST

Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger

TURNING RED

Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins

 

While some people might go for the bizarre stop-motion Marcel the Shell, I think the best animated feature will be a choice between Turning Red and Pinocchio. I would love it if Turning Red, which is set in Toronto, and the first Pixar film solely directed by a woman, our own Domee Shi, would win in this category. But the buzz is around the big man, Guillermo del Toro, and his passion project, Pinocchio. I don’t love it but it has Oscar written all over it. 

 

Best Cinematography

The nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front; Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths; Elvis; Empire of Light; Tár

The Winner: All Quiet’s James Friend

James Friend’s cinematography brilliant evokes the horror of “old fashioned” warfare, now brought back to us in real life by the Russians in Ukraine. 

 

Best Production Design

The nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, Elvis, The Fabelmans

The Winner: Babylon’s Florencia Martin and Anthony Carlino 

I thought the film was pretentious and historically inaccurate but it looked incredible. Kudos to Martin and Carlino.

 

Best Costumes

The nominees: Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

The Winner: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Ruth E. Carter

She won deservedly for Black Panther and Carter will win it again.

 

Best Music – Original Score

The nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front, Babylon, The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans

The Winner: All Quiet’s Volker Bertelmann

Wonderful contemporary composing and a wrenching, effective score.

Best Music – Original Song

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

The Winner: Naatu Naatu’s MM Keerevani

A stand out winning song with great energy and totally danceable. Wonderful!

Best Documentary Short

The nominees: The Elephant Whisperers, Haulout, How Do You Measure a Year?, The Martha Mitchell Effect, Stranger at the Gate

The Winner: The Elephant Whisperers

This year’s My Octopus Teacher only elephants are more cuddly than octopuses. 

Best Animated Short

The nominees: 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

The Winner: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse

I’d love it if the NFB’s The Flying Sailor won but it’s too avant-garde, depicting an animated figure flying backwards for the majority of an extraordinary film. The animated version of Charlie Mackesy’s sentimental life-affirming tale is bound to be the winner.

Best Live Action Short

The nominees: An Irish Goodbye, Ivalu, Night Ride, Le Pupille, The Red Suitcase

The Winner: An Irish Goodbye

This is a funny and heart-rending film which evokes a genuine sentimental response. Should win—deservedly. 

Best Sound

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

 The Winner: All Quiet’s Lars Ginzsel, Frank Kruse, Viktor Prášil & Markus Stemler 

Honestly, all of these nominees are winners. This category usually goes to the film that will garner a lot of prizes, like All Quiet this year.

Best Film Editing

The nominees: The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick

The Winner: Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Paul Rogers

A bravura film, which is almost entirely based on editing, Everything’s Rogers has to win

Best Visual Effects

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

The Winner: Avatar: The Way of Water’s crew (too many to list!)

I mean, Cameron’s film had to win in some category, didn’t it?

Best Makeup/Hairstyling

The nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elvis, The Whale

The winner: Elvis’ crew

This film had to garner something, too, didn’t it? And the film does have great hair!