Race to the 2023 Oscar Awards
The 2023 Oscar Awards race is heating up, with the Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals all done and dusted.
Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto event, joining films such as Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, and The King’s Speech. Cate Blanchett Colin Farrell and Brendan Fraser have also won awards for their roles in Tár, The Banshees of Insherin, and The Whale.
The Fablemans is in line for Best Picture at the Oscars while Fraser could take home Best Actor for his remarkable performance in The Whale, and Blanchett could snag Best Actress for her work in Tár.
Michelle Williams was initially thought to be the one best suited to win the Best Supporting Actress award but it’s since been reported that she could have her say in the Best Actress Category for her performance in The Fablemans, should the voters accept her in said classification.
Brendan Gleeson also has a shot at Best Supporting for his role in The Banshees of Insherin. Of course, it’s still too early to say as plenty of changes are expected between now and when the final ballots are cast in March. But there will be bookmakers offering odds on the Oscars’
categories and bookies’ promo codes will also be available to persons looking to place bets on various outcomes.
Who knows? One such platform may offer bets on someone getting slapped at the upcoming ceremony based on what happened at the last one.
Anyhow, it’s worth noting that Spielberg was the favorite to win Best Film for Saving Private Ryan in 1999 but saw his movie lose to Shakespeare in Love. He was also the frontrunner with Lincoln in 2012 but lost out back then too.
The 2022 awards also threw up a surprise, with CODA beating West Side Story and The Power of the Dog despite riding very little hype despite the latter films tipped to battle it out for the award.
While The Fablemans is heavily tipped as a frontrunner right now, there’s still a lot of time for things to change. As things stand, The Banshees of Insherin stands a good chance of landing a nomination for Best Picture.
The year’s other festivals put several other films at the forefront and they now all have a shot at nominations, yet they also have things going against them. Tár and The Whale are both Dark while a movie like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hardly gets nominated.
The Woman King is a great watch from the action category but isn’t considered nomination material while Women Talking is quite divisive, although that isn’t an issue that should rule it out based on the Academy’s voting procedures.
All of the above is likely to make it, and there would still be lots of open slots for films such as Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Armageddon Time to sneak in.
The New York Film Festival brought two world premieres in Till and She Said. The former, which comes from Chinonye Chukwu, retells the story of Emmett Till’s lynching in 1955 and his mother’s fight for justice while the other delves into the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct saga.
There’s still more in the way of huge movies set to be released before the end of 2022. James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water launches in December while Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is only a few days away, with a November 11 release date in place. An international title All Quiet on the Western Front also just dropped at the end of October.
International films also holding a chance of sneaking in via the ballots include Triangle of Sadness, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, as well as the Korean drama, Decision to Leave.
Concerning actors, Fraser, Blanchett, and Farrell are leading the pack while the likes of Hugh Jackman, Ana de Armas, Olivia Colman, Viola Davis, and Bill Nighy are all possible nominees for performances in The Son, Blonde, Empire of Light, The Woman King and Living, respectively.
Williams was a strong favorite to win Best Supporting Actress but it will be a lot harder for her to win silverware with a category switch.
Now, the likes of Judy Hirsch, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, and Judith Ivey all have an opportunity. Hirsch has a few scenes in The Fablemans while the others are all part of the cast of Women Talking.
