Oscars 2023 predictions: who will win the top awards?

The 95th Academy Awards ceremony is being held on Sunday with all eyes once again on the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

After “Slapgate” hit the headlines last year with the on-stage altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock, organisers will be hoping it’s the films that are the talking point at the Oscars this time around.

Covid-19 “dealt a devastating blow to the industry”, but the return of “box office hits” and “acclaimed indies” this year “could be the turning point in the recovery of the Academy Awards”, said Deadline.

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Low-budget sci-fi action film Everything Everywhere All at Once has “blossomed into the front-running contender” for Best Picture, receiving a total of 11 nominations at this year’s awards, said Entertainment Weekly (EW).

And pundits are “still picking their jaws off the floor” after English actress Andrea Riseborough’s nomination in the “highly competitive” Best Actress category for her role in To Leslie, said the BBC.

Brian Tyree Henry’s Best Supporting Actor nomination for Causeway was also “a huge but very welcome surprise”, said the BBC, while Danielle Deadwyler was snubbed for her “outstanding performance” in Till, which had been tipped to earn her the Best Actress award.

Ireland “scooped a record 14 Oscar nominations”, said The Guardian, ”prompting jokes that the ceremony should be relocated from Los Angeles to Dublin”. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin received nine nominations, “second only” to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Oscars ceremony will be broadcast live to millions of viewers worldwide on 12 March, with Jimmy Kimmel returning for his third outing as host.

Best Picture

World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy confidently predicted back in October that absurdist comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All at Once was “going to get a Best Picture nomination”, adding: “You can lock that one up in the bank.” Ruimy had “never seen this many actors/filmmakers gushing over a film since… ever?” – a first that surely ensured the “Oscar will come calling for this movie”, he argued.

The Fabelmans grabbed the audience award at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, “instantly vaulting it to the top of the Oscars race”, wrote film critic Caryn James on the BBC. The “fictional version” of Steven Spielberg’s childhood and adolescence is “among his most rigorous and emotionally honest films”.

The film picked up Golden Globes for Best Picture, Drama and Best Director, but few believe the award is likely to go to Spielberg, who has not won a Best Picture Oscar since Schindler’s List in 1993.

This year’s award season seems to have been a “lopsided affair” in favour of Everything Everywhere All at Once, said Deadline.

Only four other films in history have received this much acclaim from an awards season: American Beauty, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire and Argo, all of which went on to win Best Picture.

Last year, Coda became the first film from a streaming company to be awarded the Best Picture gong. But the likes of Netflix and Apple “have not had as strong a year”, with only Bafta Best Picture winner All Quiet on the Western Front making it into the top category, said the BBC.

Best picture nominations:

• 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

Best Director

The Academy “completely ignored the many women who directed acclaimed movies this year”, said HuffPost. To an extent, it came as “no surprise and entirely inline” with the awards’ “abysmal record”.

But there was a “lot of love” for Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, said Screen Daily, securing nominations in three categories and the director’s “first major nomination”. Spielberg also extended his “major” record as the only person to be nominated for best director in six different decades, noted EW.

And although James Cameron was “passed over” for best director, said The Hollywood Reporter, “it seems a foregone conclusion that The Way of Water will win the Oscar in VFX”.

Gold Derby currently has Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert as favourites for Best Director, at 16/5. In eight of the last ten years the Best Director Oscar has gone to the winner of the Directors Guild of America award – and Kwan and Scheinert won that last month.

Behind ‘the Daniels’ in the Gold Derby predictions are Spielberg at 19/5, while Todd Field, Martin McDonagh and Östlund are all at 9/2.

Best Director nominations:

• Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Steve Spielberg, The Fabelmans
• Todd Field, Tár
• Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

Directing nominations:

• Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Steve Spielberg, The Fabelmans
• Todd Field, Tár
• Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

Best Actor

The award for Best Actor “has become a three-way race to the top”, said Deadline.

Colin Farrell “leads the pack” for his turn in The Banshees of Inisherin, said IndieWire, having won at the Golden Globes. But Farrell is “just a few steps ahead” of Brendan Fraser, who has been widely praised for his role in The Whale, the story of the reclusive English teacher attempting to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter. “It’s Fraser vs. Farrell,” said EW. Fraser’s emotional acceptance speech after winning at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards reminded viewers and voters of his “charismatic, endearing, and lovable persona,” said the site.

Austin Butler could upset things for Farrell and Fraser, however. He won the Golden Globe for best actor earlier this month for his performance in Elvis – just two days before the rock-and-roll star’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, died aged 54.

Speaking to The New York Times, Butler said things had been “a roller coaster lately – a lot of peaks and these deep valleys of sorrow”.

Bill Nighy also received his first Oscar nomination, for his performance in Living, as did Paul Mescal for Aftersun.

Best Actor nominations:

• Austin Butler, Elvis
• Colin Farrrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Bredan Fraser, The Whale
• Paul Mescal, Aftersun
• Bill Nighy, Living

Best Actress

This year’s Best Actress category is widely regarded as one of the strongest for some time.

Cate Blanchett’s “high-degree-of-difficulty portrayal of a brilliant classical music figure facing a misconduct scandal” in Tár puts her “well in front of the pack”, said the Los Angeles Times. Alongside her is Michelle Yeoh, who is “easily” the “strongest element” in Everything Everywhere All at Once, said the newspaper.

Both women picked up Golden Globes, with the Best Actress category split into two awards: for drama and for musical or comedy.

“The burning passion Hollywood has displayed for Yeoh” led EW to predict she’ll win the award, but Deadline is holding out for Blanchett. “There doesn’t appear to be anyone who can catch her,” it said.

Many thought British actress Andrea Riseborough “had too high a hill to climb to score a nomination”, said the BBC. But the Academy felt otherwise, delivering “the biggest shock of all” by pitting her against Blanchett, Yeoh, Michelle Williams and Ana De Armas, said the Financial Times.

De Armas’s own nomination for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in the “widely derided” Blonde was also somewhat unexpected, the FT added.

Best Actress nominations:

• Cate Blanchett, Tár
• Ana De Armas, Blonde
• Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
• Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
• Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Supporting Actress

Angela Bassett “made superhero cinema history” with her nomination. She is the “first woman, the first person of colour and the first Marvel Studios actor to be nominated for an Academy Award for their performance in a comic book adaptation”, said Variety.

Having won the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice awards for her performance, she “remains the presumptive frontrunner”, But her connection to the Marvel film franchise could be “holding her back,” said Deadline, with the actress losing out at both the Baftas and SAG Awards.

Hong Chau’s nomination was something of a surprise, said the BBC. And Jamie Lee Curtis was also visibly shocked to have made the shortlist, sharing a picture with her hand over her mouth on Instagram.

Best actress in a supporting role nominations:

• 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

Best Supporting Actor

This year, the Oscars might spur “the most inspiring comeback stories in recent memory”, said EW, as Ke Huy Quan seems to be the favourite for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The actor recently gave “heartfelt acceptance speeches” at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, missing out only at the Baftas to The Banshees of Inisherin’s Barry Keoghan.

Even with the Bafta under his belt, Gold Derby predicts that Keoghan and his Banshees co-star Brendan Gleeson will both be clapping as Quan takes to the stage.

IndieWire had pointed to another contender for the gong: Brian Tyree Henry, for his role in Causeway. His nomination was “a welcome surprise”, with fans quick to celebrate the news on social media, said Parade.

Best supporting actor nominations:

• 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