95th Academy Award Nomination Analysis: The Snubs, The Surprises and Everything in Between
After months of Festival premieres, campaigning, precursors and other events, The Oscar nominations threw some major surprises.
With the announcement of the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, the path to Best Picture glory has been narrowed down for another year. 2023 has a massive ten Best Picture nominations that reflect nearly every aspect of the industry. You have 2 billion dollar mega-blockbusters in the mix, mid range budget films that captured the hearts of audiences and critics, acclaimed specialty fare and a foreign language remake that is slowly being discovered. Leading the charge with a whopping 11 nominations is A24’s zeitgeist beloved smash Everything Everywhere All at Once. With 9 nominations apiece are Netflix’s German war epic All Quiet on the Western Front and Searchlight’s dark comedy The Banshees of Inisherin. Landing Best Picture nominations and getting in other major categories include Elvis (8 nominations), The Fabelmans (7), Tar (6) and Top Gun Maverick (6). The other nominations in BP are Avatar: The Way of Water (4), Triangle of Sadness (3) and Women Talking which despite critical acclaim managed just one other nomination in Adapted Screenplay.
Colin Farrell in Banshees of Inishirin
In top tier categories, there were as many expected nominations as there were massive surprises that once again broke away at Oscar stats that have stood for almost 90 years. In Best Director, The Daniels, Todd Field, Martin McDonagh and Steven Spielberg earned predicted nominations with Spielberg tying Martin Scorsese for second most directing nominations with nine. William Wyler holds the record with 12. Swedish auteur Ruben Ostlund edged out Baz Luhrmann, Joseph Kosinski, Edward Berger, James Cameron and Sarah Polley for the fifth slot for Triangle. Polley’s absence in this category means that no female filmmakers made the Best Director lineup after two consecutive years of females taking home the prize. Kosinski earned a Directors Guild of America nomination for Maverick yet few expected him to be nominated. However, many expected Berger to be the fifth slot over Ostlund.
If there is one consistent theme in the acting categories, it is the amount of first time nominees that will be making their first trip to the Dolby Theatre, including one huge surprise in the Lead Actress category. Only four of the twenty acting nominations have either been nominated or won before. For the first time since 1935, all the Lead Actor nominations consist of first time nominees as Austin Butler, Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy will be competing for the win. Butler and Mescal represent the rising up and coming stars, Farrell and Nighy are both veterans that have given brilliant work for years and are now being finally recognized for it and Fraser is a well liked actor whose previous work has not exactly been the Academy’s cup of tea but is well liked by his peers and is making a comeback after a few turbulent years. As far as who the frontrunner is, it looks like a three way race between Butler, Farrell and Fraser. Butler and Farrell both won at The Golden Globes with the later winning most critics awards yet Fraser’s transformative performance as a 600 pound man trying to reconnect with his daughter in The Whale earned him the Critics Choice Award and has earned him much passion which could be enough to win it all.
Andrea Riseborough
In Best Actress, we have Cate Blanchett, Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Ana De Armas and Andrea Riseborough. De Armas getting in for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde would honestly be the most shocking nomination given the negative reception to the controversial movie if not for one of the nominees she will be competing in her category with. In one of the most surprising and out there nominations in a very long time, Riseborough was nominated for portraying an out of control alcoholic in the little seen indie To Leslie. Outside of an Independent Spirit Award nomination, she failed to make any of the major precursors. However, something magical happened over the last few weeks. Despite having little to no money for a campaign, high profile actors like Edward Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Aniston among others supported and hosted screenings of the film on Riseborough’s behalf leading to today’s shocking nomination. The success of this campaign may very well influence future critically acclaimed performances in indies that don’t have the money for a huge awards push but instead rely on word of mouth and support from higher profile stars. Blanchett and Yeoh are the two frontrunners for Best Actress at this point.
The Supporting categories were filled with less shockers but some high profile misses. Supporting Actor will see Brendan Gleeson, Brian Tyree Henry, Judd Hirsch, Barry Keoghan and frontrunner Ke Huy Quan squaring off with Quan looking like the easy winner of the night while Supporting Actress will be a face off between Angela Bassett, Hong Chau, Kerry Condon, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu. Basset has been victorious at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice although Condon has earned many critics prizes. Some prominent misses include Paul Dano in The Fabelmans and Janelle Monae in Glass Onion.
So what’s the state of the race at this point? Well if last year taught us anything, it is not to declare a guaranteed winner until it is Oscar night. Power of The Dog had won nearly every precursor Best Picture award and received 12 nominations but a longer Oscar season window gave voters more time to discover a film like CODA and its likeable cast and relatable story won over people causing it to take home Best Picture despite only getting two other nominations in Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay(both of which CODA won) while Dog only walked away with Best Director for Jane Campion. With its leading nominations, dominating most critics awards and winning the Critics Choice Best Picture, EEAAO finds itself in the same place Dog was at this point. However, there is reason to believe that it can avoid that same fate and even take the big prize. The film is already a box office success with $100 million worldwide on a modest $25 million budget, it has been loved by many industry people, it’s very likeable and accessible and even ten months since it hit theaters, it still has huge support which is hard for any film much less something out there like this. Don’t rule out Banshees or Fabelmans either. The former has an equal amount of love and a victory in screenplay and one or two acting wins may help it clinch the Best Picture prize McDonagh’s previous film Three Billboards almost got in 2017. And of course, there is the master himself Steven Spielberg. After nearly 25 years after his last Best Director win, it is possible the Academy will want honor him with a third trophy for a film based on his life.
There are still six weeks left and at this point anything can happen. There are still important guild awards like The Screen Actors Guild Awards, The Producers Guild Awards and the DGA Awards to come that can throw more surprises into the race.