One by one, the films that are supposed to have been at the center of the 2022-23 awards race have been released to a lukewarm reception. “Tár”, “The Banshees of Inisherin”, “Till”, “She Said” and even the supposed favorite, Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans”, have all underperformed at the box office at a time when almost all films they are underperforming, hurt by a product shortage that has prevented people from returning to the habit of going to the movies.
(Or, perhaps, it has moved the movie-going habit from multiplexes to living rooms, where viewers can be sure that any movie they care to see will end momentarily.)
But does the box office drop affect the award chances for “The Fabelmans” or “Banshees” or “Tár”? Less than a year after “CODA” won Best Picture with a total US gross of less than $2 million (of course, that came in a year when theaters were seen the most). affected by the pandemic), it is difficult to say that the disappointing ticket sales will continue. be a huge blow to a film’s award chances, except that the strong grosses could have given all of those films a boost with voters, pushing them to the top of the screening queue.
But that’s the real question: not what the grosses mean, but what voters who largely haven’t even seen these movies will think when (and, I suppose, if) they do. This column mentions about two dozen movies, and I bet the vast majority of the 9,000+ Oscar voters haven’t seen more than 10 of these movies yet, even though shortlist voting in 10 categories starts in 10 days and nomination voting begins in one month and 10 days.
(In shortlist categories like documentaries and international films, dedicated voter pools should be in double digits now, and I know plenty of voters who are.)
By now we know what has gone well at the festivals and we know what the critics like and what the public has gone to see; We don’t know what film professionals will respond to, except anecdotally, and we won’t know until the guilds start voting. (The first nominations will be announced in early January.)
Until then, here are some thoughts on the Best Picture contenders.
The restless striker
“The Fabelmans” you’ve got Spielberg, a group of top acting contenders led by Michelle Williams and Judd Hirsch, and a feeling he’d be an easy consensus favorite in March’s final vote. But that’s a long way off, and Spielberg’s movies have been here before and then fell short. Still, “What’s going to beat him?” is a question with no persuasive answers at this point.
The hits
The Academy would love nothing more than a Best Picture nominee list that is filled with movies audiences have heard of and might even have seen. Greatest hits are often in short supply at the Oscars, except in the animation and visual effects categories, but there are an unusually large number of films that could qualify this year, led by the highest-grossing film of the year, “Top Gun: Maverick”.
by Baz Luhmann “Elvis” not so sure, as Luhrmann’s wacky movies haven’t gotten a best picture nomination since “Moulin Rouge!” more than two decades ago. But he’s still a solid contender, as is Ryan Coogler’s. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” that fights the stigma of comic book movies and the bias of the Oscars against sequels. Some of his thunder may also have been stolen by Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The King Woman” another African-set film about black women empowerment that came out a couple of months before “Black Panther.”
Finally, the biggest hit in A24 history, “Everything everywhere, all at once”, It’s the kind of frenetic, adventurous film that Academy voters would normally ignore, but the nomination round of Oscar voting rewards passion rather than consensus, and there are probably more than enough members who will respond to its wild energy and want to. reward Michelle Yeoh. and the return of Ke Huy Quan.
The Awards Movies
The fall festivals showcased many films that fit the typical awards profile: serious dramas, usually made on a fairly low budget, that receive critical acclaim and fill the majority of Best Picture slots in a typical year. The three strongest entries in this field may be those of Sarah Polley. “Women Talking” intense and surprisingly uplifting; Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin”, wickedly funny until it gets really twisted; and Todd Field’sTar,” cerebral with a searing performance from Cate Blanchett.
by Darren Aronofsky “The whale” resembles “Tár” in that it has an undeniable lead performance (by Brendan Fraser), though the film itself may not connect with enough voters, while Maria Schrader’s film “She said” it will need a boost from Hollywood voters for whom the story of the New York Times reporters who helped oust Harvey Weinstein resonates. And while Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” largely dismissed as a contender after its Venice premiere, Olivia Colman’s bold central performance and its rich evocation of the power of cinema (a favorite theme this year) might put you to sleep.
Oliver Hermanus’ “To live” It’s also in the category of a potential sleeper, another movie buoyed by a monumental lead performance. This one is from veteran British actor Bill Nighy, who is such a popular presence on the awards circuit that he could move the needle for an unusually underrated and moving period drama adapted from the 1953 Japanese film “Ikiru.”
question marks
The big movie voters (and no one else) haven’t seen yet is “Avatar: The Path of Water”, but next week will bring the first screenings of James Cameron’s long-in-development sequel to his multi-Oscar nominee in 2009. One has to assume it’s going to be huge, and you underestimate Cameron at your peril, but a fantasy/sci-fi sequel isn’t automatic Oscar bait, except in below-the-line categories.
Other question marks include Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” which was hated by many critics, but is so big, so bold, and so staggeringly over the top that it could impress many voters. (An Academy voter grabbed me in the lobby after the first screening and said he wished it would last another hour, this after seeing its three-hour, eight-minute runtime and a post-show Q&A. the projection).
Then there are the two great hopes of Netflix, “Crystal Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” Y “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”; the first is a crowd-pleasing Rian Johnson comedy, not a genre beloved by awards voters, and the second is a darkly imaginative stop-motion animation fighting to become the first Best Picture-nominated animated film in more than a decade.
long shots
Other films hoping to find a way into the career include Antoine Fuqua’s harrowing drama. “Emancipation,” Not helped by the mixed initial reviews and the fact that it stars and is produced by Oscar persona non grata Will Smith; Winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or “Triangle of Sadness” a wicked and sometimes completely exaggerated satire; international Oscar nominations “All Quiet on the West Front” (brutal, from Germany) and “Close” (soft, from Austria); James Gray’s unsentimental coming-of-age story based on his adolescence, “Time of Armageddon”; Ron Howard’s cave rescue drama “Thirteen Lives” that it’s trying to mount an Oscar campaign after a very brief theatrical run and a summer broadcast release; and Marc Forster “A Man Called Otto” starring Tom Hanks, a longtime Oscar favorite who has received surprisingly few awards in the past two decades.
the predictions
Like I said before, we don’t really know what the voters are thinking at this point, and the next round of awards and nominations (Critics Choice, Golden Globes, National Board of Review, New York and Los Angeles film critics) won’t. tell us a lot.
But knowing that it takes around 850 votes for a movie to get a Best Picture nomination, these are the movies we think will have the support to get there. Most of these are consensus picks as the run enters December, though I suspect “Living” will be a surprise.
Note: The Academy has had a large increase in membership outside the United States over the past six years, and the Best Picture category has included a non-English language film for the past four years in a row. At the moment I am predicting that the streak will end, but that could be a risky prediction.
Expected nominees:
“The Fabelmans” (Universal)
“The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight)
“Women Talking” (United Artists Release)
Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount)
“Everything everywhere, all at once” (A24)
“Tár” (Focus)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.)
“Babylon” (Paramount)
“Crystal Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (Netflix)
“Living” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Other stronger contenders:
“Avatar: The Way of Water” (Disney)
“The King Woman” (Sony)
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Disney)
“The Whale” (A24)
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix)
“She Said” (Universal)
“Empire of Light” (Reflector)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
