2023 Oscar predictions: Who will win, and who could surprise?

(Image credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

published 11 March 2023

The moment of truth for 2023 Oscar predictions has arrived. Even though there's little suspense left in this year's Best Picture race, a surprising amount of uncertainty remains in many of the other categories, as three of the four acting races are neck and neck. Will Austin Butler defeat Brendan Fraser? Will Cate Blanchett win her third Oscar, or will Michelle Yeoh make history? Here are our predictions:

Best Picture

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The film has been utterly dominating in recent weeks, winning top prizes at the Producers Guild of America Awards, Writers Guild of America Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, to name a few. As The New York Times notes, only four films in history have swept these four guild awards, and all four — American Beauty, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, and Argo — went on to win Best Picture.

The only other movie with a slim chance is Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front based on its international support, as it won the top prize at the British Academy Film Awards. But that has only lined up with Best Picture once since 2015. Besides, movies that win Best Picture should traditionally also be nominated for directing, editing, writing, and acting, and All Quiet is missing all but writing. Still, could the war in Ukraine inspire the Academy to honor this anti-war film?

But what about Steven Spielberg? His semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans has been getting surprisingly little love this awards season and isn't favored to win a single Oscar. So might voters feel compelled to ensure Spielberg is recognized in some way by backing him in this category, especially when the movie is so personal? The Fabelmans won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and since 2012, every movie that received that award went on to win at least one Oscar. But it's hard to explain why Spielberg would have lost at the DGAs if there was enough passion for him. It doesn't help that The Fabelmans bombed horribly at the BAFTAs, which shares voters with the Academy Awards.

Butler has the slight edge, though, because Elvis is nominated for Best Picture and The Whale isn't. No one has won Best Actor for a film not nominated for Best Picture since Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart in 2010. On the other hand, the Oscars don't often reward someone as young as 31-year-old Butler, and Fraser's win would represent a comeback for a beloved actor, which the Academy may be eager to get behind. Fraser's film is also more emotional, and he got in the "last word" with a moving speech at the SAG Awards days before Oscar voting began.

Best Actress is nearly as neck and neck as Best Actor, at least as of the past few weeks. It initially seemed like Cate Blanchett might steamroll after she won at the BAFTAs and the Critics' Choice Awards, but then Michelle Yeoh swooped in and took the SAG Award. Both Blanchett and Yeoh also won a Golden Globe, and they both star in Best Picture nominees, so they're roughly equally matched heading into the Oscars.

Blanchett's performance has been hailed as perhaps the greatest of her career, which seems hard to beat. On the other hand, she has already won two Oscars. Yeoh has never even been nominated before, and she would become the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. So a desire to honor a performer who hasn't already been recognized by the Academy multiple times, and who stars in voters' favorite film of the year, should boost Yeoh. But it will come down to the wire.

This is the only one of the acting categories that isn't much of a contest, as Ke Huy Quan should easily take this award. He was the frontrunner even before Everything Everywhere itself, partially due to the former child star's heartwarming comeback story of returning to acting after quitting for 20 years due to difficulty finding roles. He's been everywhere (all at once) in recent weeks opening up about this years-long struggle, recently sharing that he lost his health insurance after filming Everything Everywhere because he couldn't book a single job. Every actor can relate to that, and the acting branch is the Academy's largest.

Best Supporting Actress has been the most chaotic acting race all season, and it remains so in the home stretch. After the Golden Globes, Angela Bassett pulled ahead for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and a win at the Critics' Choice Awards cemented her frontrunner status. But then The Banshees of Inisherin's Kerry Condon won at the BAFTAs and Everything Everywhere All at Once's Jamie Lee Curtis won at the SAG Awards, turning this into a three-way race with no clear favorite.

Any of the three could win, but it's hard to ignore the euphoric response Curtis received at the SAG Awards. Actors — who, again, form the largest branch of the Academy — are clearly excited about recognizing Curtis, someone who has been around for decades but never received recognition from the Oscars. If Yeoh, Quan, and Curtis all win, this would make Everything Everywhere the first film since Network in 1977 to take home three acting awards and only the third to ever do so. But for a movie with this much passion behind it, it's within reach.

Though Everything Everywhere All at Once is set to win Best Picture, this category isn't as much of a done deal as you might think. The Banshees of Inisherin could still win considering it's a dialogue-driven movie from a playwright, and voters may feel the writing stands out more than it does in Everything Everywhere. Plus, if all of the actors from Banshees are going to lose, voters could view this category as their only chance to give the film some love. Keep in mind, the Best Picture winner doesn't necessarily always win for its screenplay.

This should be an easy win for Women Talking, which is almost like a filmed play, so the strong writing is one of the primary takeaways. It also won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Writers Guild of America Awards. But keep an eye on All Quiet on the Western Front, as its dominance at the BAFTAs, and its nine Oscar nominations, made clear there's plenty of love for the film. It also won Best Adapted Screenplay at the BAFTAs.

The animated film category is almost as locked up as Best Picture itself, as Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio has been sweeping the season, winning everywhere from the Critics' Choice Awards to the BAFTAs and the Annie Awards, the latter of which specifically honors animation. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish does have some slight momentum in that it was a hit over the holidays and has been praised for its impressive animation, but don't bet on a surprise here.

Navalny, a documentary about jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is in the lead after previously winning at the British Academy Film Awards and the Producers Guild of America Awards. It's arguably the most relevant film among the nominees given it's about a top critic of Vladimir Putin released amid the war in Ukraine, which will surely lead to a memorable televised speech slamming the Russian leader. But a surprise for Fire of Love, which follows a pair of French volcanologists, isn't out of the question given it won at the Directors Guild of America Awards.

The short film categories are often the hardest to predict. But Stranger at the Gate, a New Yorker short about a "former Marine with P.T.S.D. [who] planned to attack Muslims in Indiana — until an unexpected encounter with faith," looks like a particularly strong contender this year, especially given it's produced by Malala Yousafzai. On the other hand, The Elephant Whisperers, which follows an Indian couple who care for an orphaned elephant, has the benefit of being backed by Netflix, and the streamer has won in this category several times before.

Two-time Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón produced the Italian short Le pupille, which follows a group of young girls at a Catholic boarding school amid World War II, and it was released by Disney+. Having an Academy heavyweight like Cuarón attached could help sway voters, though An Irish Goodbye, which follows two estranged brothers and won Best British Short Film at the BAFTAs, is on its tail.

The safest bet in the animated short film category is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, which is based on the popular book of the same name. It's produced by J.J. Abrams and backed by Apple, so we know they'll have done a good job pushing it, and it won Best British Short Animation at the BAFTAs. The Annie Awards, which honor animation, also gave it four awards. But the dark horse is the Portuguese short Ice Merchants, which won Best Animated Short Subject at the Annies.

Justin Hurwitz won two Oscars for La La Land, and his Babylon score won at the Golden Globes. So he has a good chance of repeating, especially when you consider his music is such a big part of Babylon and is even being used in advertising for the Oscars. His biggest threat is Volker Bertelmann's score for All Quiet on the Western Front, which won at the BAFTAs. Also don't count out John Williams for The Fabelmans if voters want to honor the legendary 91-year-old composer near the end of his career, though he hasn't won since 1994 and may have undercut his chances by confirming he isn't retiring, as originally expected.

Rihanna is having a big year coming off her Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, and her Black Panther song is likely to have stuck with voters given it plays during an emotional moment in the film when the audience has been left in tears over Chadwick Boseman's death. On the other hand, "Naatu Naatu" from the three-hour Indian epic RRR is the Film Twitter favorite, and the epic dance sequence it accompanies has been a viral sensation. The song also won the Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award, so it looks like the frontrunner. "This Is a Life" could surprise, though, if voters truly have Everything Everywhere fever, leading them to check it off everywhere … all at once.

It's often said that when in doubt, replace "best editing" with "most editing" and that should be your guide in predicting this category. If that's the case, the award should go to Everything Everywhere All at Once, which had quite a lot of frantic editing throughout. It also won the award for best editing for a comedy film at the American Cinema Editors Awards, though Top Gun: Maverick is running in second place after winning the best editing for a drama film award at that ceremony.

A movie phenomenon as massive as Top Gun: Maverick can't walk away from the Oscars totally empty-handed, can it? This would be its best chance given how impressive the jet sounds are in the film, and Top Gun already won at the Cinema Audio Society Awards. Then again, All Quiet on the Western Front won Best Sound at the BAFTAs, and this award has gone to numerous war movies in recent years including 1917, Dunkirk, and Hacksaw Ridge. But voters might lean toward Top Gun if only because it's not likely to earn any other Oscars, whereas All Quiet on the Western Front should take a few.

This one comes down to two films that used heavy prosthetics to make iconic actors unrecognizable: Elvis, which turned Tom Hanks into the villainous Tom Parker, and The Whale, which transformed Brendan Fraser into a 600-pound man. It could go either way, but Elvis may have the edge as the more well-liked film overall. It also won this equivalent award at the BAFTAs and Critics' Choice Awards over The Whale and won Best Period and/or Character Make-Up at the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards.

Babylon may have been snubbed for Best Picture, but it could still end up with several Oscars, including one for production design. Voters often favor period pieces here, and the Academy is likely to appreciate its recreations of 1920s Hollywood, just as they backed Mank, another movie about old Hollywood, in this category a few years ago. Plus, Babylon previously won for its production design at the Critics' Choice Awards and BAFTAs.

How could the film lauded for having some of the most stunning, revolutionary visual effects in movie history lose this Oscar? That film would be Avatar: The Way of Water, for which director James Cameron advanced the technology behind filming underwater performances with motion capture, and the original movie won this award. It's almost not worth considering another possibility, though perhaps it could lose if voters check off Top Gun: Maverick in all the technical categories because they prefer it to Avatar — or if the Everything Everywhere wave is so strong, it begins winning awards for which it wasn't even nominated.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.