Here we are, the home stretch for our Oscar viewing and predictions. And here we come to, not only Best Picture, but Best Director and the three other feature length categories – Best International Film, Best Animated Feature Film, and Best Documentary Feature Film.
When determining my preferences in each of these categories, I often look for the film that not only has something to say about the human condition and can speak into our present moment while standing the test of time, but I also look for films that embody the unique vision of their creators – be it a comically bleak view of human relationships or a mythic outlook on the nature of family.
And while many of these categories can be predicted based on the momentum of awards that have come before, there’s always room here for a surprise or two – and there are always categories (like Best Documentary Feature) that don’t have the same consensus as some of the others. It’s all part of what makes awards season so much fun!
Best Directing
Martin McDonagh’s work in The Banshees of Inisherin sees the filmmaker and playwright returning to Ireland and showing restraint and control over both his camerawork and stylistic flourishes to settle into an unsettling fable reminiscent of his stage work, filled with careful (and gorgeous) visual compositions. In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert bring the frenetic energy and nonstop pace of their music video work and manage to blend the action and science fiction spectacle with a deeply moving family drama that has more emotional resonance than you’d expect from the premise (and some of the more outlandish sequences). Directors everywhere are plumbing the depths of their childhood to craft their memory films, and Steven Spielberg shows considerable vulnerability in exploring his parents’ divorce alongside his burgeoning love of cinema in The Fabelmans – a master filmmaker at the top of his game. While he may have started with intimate chamber dramas, with Todd Field’s direction in TÁR, the filmmaker expands on his storytelling prowess to craft a densely layered, richly conceived exploration of power and consequence for the abuse of power. Ruben Östlund has made a career out of confrontational, discomfiting cinema, and with his first English-language feature film, Triangle of Sadness, he expands upon this by forcing his audience to confront our assumptions about class, power, wealth, and privilege – and the ways this can all shift due to circumstance.
Prediction: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Spoiler: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Preference: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once (though this is another category where I’d be happy with any of the nominees winning)
Best International Feature Film
Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front manages to show the horrors of war without ever letting us off the hook by making the violence exciting or thrilling or heroic – it’s a brutal and grueling anti-war film. In Argentina, 1985, director Santiago Mitre has crafted a predictable and crowd-pleasing courtroom thriller about the civilian legal team who brought the country’s former military dictators to justice. An overly manipulative coming-of-age drama, Lukas Dhont’s Close tells the story of two boys with a wonderfully close friendship who find classmates and school pressures attempting to drive them apart. Veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski tells the story of EO, a heartbreaking and gorgeous series of vignettes about the titular donkey as he makes his way through Europe and intersects with human kindness and cruelty. The only film this Oscar season I wasn’t able to see was Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl, but from those who have seen it, I have heard that this story of a young girl sent to live with distant relatives is absolutely beautiful.
Prediction: All Quiet on the Western Front
Spoiler: Argentina, 1985
Preference: EO
Best Animated Feature Film
Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Pinocchio is stunning – and it’s one of the few interpretations of the work that refuses the original’s neat and tidy message to allow for a powerful indictment of conformity and the way this conformity empowers fascism. With Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Dean Fleischer Camp has crafted a lovely blend of stop-motion animation and live action that explores the beauty and life-affirming power of community. The latest film in the Shrek franchise, Joel Crawford’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish unexpectedly explores mortality and aging – though it does dip into the frenetic action so common to today’s animated features. Director Chris Williams crafts a compelling fantasy world in The Sea Beast, and the film’s message of tolerance and understanding is lovely – even if it does follow some of your standard family film beats to get there. Turning Red is a delightful comedy about identity and adolescence, and Domee Shi infuses her film with joy, humor, pathos, and cultural specificity that grounds the film in a very real and lived experience – in spite of the story’s fantastical elements.
Prediction: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Spoiler: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Preference: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Best Documentary Feature Film
Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes is a gorgeously shot eco-documentary about brothers who rescue injured black kites – the message is timely, and the visuals are beautiful, but I found the film to be unfocused. At first glance, the exhilarating artist biopic All the Beauty and the Bloodshed seems far afield from Laura Poitras’s usual political documentaries, but the more you sit with the film and Nan Goldin’s activism, the more you see how perfectly suited filmmaker and subject are to one another. Taking the footage and photography of Katia and Maurice Krafft, Sara Dosa has created a stunning rumination on love and scientific discovery in the beautiful and heartfelt portrait Fire of Love. A House Made of Splinters is a heartbreaking work of cinéma vérité, and director Simon Lereng Wilmont patiently observes orphans and troubled children who have lost their families due to violence in eastern Ukraine or due to parental neglect. A taut documentary thriller profiling Putin’s political rival, Daniel Roher’s Navalny is a thoroughly compelling portrait of the titular politician’s career and life in exile, but it barely touches the more complicated aspects of his political life and alliances.
Prediction: Navalny
Spoiler: All That Breathes
Preference: Fire of Love (though I’d be very happy if All the Beauty or A House Made of Splinters won)
Best Picture
I was struck by the way the filmmakers behind All Quiet on the Western Front managed to craft a truly anti-war film – it is harrowing and stomach-churning from the opening shots, contrasting the idealism of the young characters with the grim realities of war while never allowing us vicarious thrills or excitement through the violence onscreen. Avatar: The Way of Water may be filled with gorgeous visuals, but the story at its center is predictable and trite, the dialogue stiff and repetitive, the gender politics regressive and exasperating, and the use of real-life Indigenous cultures as inspiration thoughtless and condescending. The bitterness of a friendship coming to an end in The Banshees of Inisherin has ripples for the entire community, and this mournful dirge of a comic fable has deep emotional resonances for our own fractious time. History told through a funhouse mirror, Elvis is a hyperactive musical biopic told by an unreliable narrator that explore the price of fame and the way it can chip away at your sense of self. Anchored on the premise of exploring all the lives we could have led but didn’t (in order to save the universe!), Everything Everywhere All at Once is an absolute delight from beginning to end – action film, sci-fi mindbender, heartfelt family drama – and makes incredible strides for Asian representation in cinema. Steven Spielberg’s memories of family and his love of cinema make The Fabelmans a true love letter to the craft of movie making and an honest portrait of what it’s like to life your life as an artist, to stand outside of events as you observe and collect experiences to transform into art. With TÁR, we have an extremely compelling character portrait (anchored by a phenomenal performance) exploring the ways someone with power delights in wielding it over others, watching her delusions and self-justifications for the destructive choices she makes, and seeing her wrestle with the potential consequences for her actions. An extremely well-crafted action film, Top Gun: Maverick is perfectly calibrated to hit the right plot points at key moments, to tug on our heart strings with nostalgia… and it’s also a toxic male fairy tale that pretends to reflect on aging and mortality but really rewards men who refuse to know their limits or gracefully pass their mantle on to the next generation. While Triangle of Sadness certainly has moments where it’s interested in skewering the wealthy, it’s more pointedly a razor-sharp satire about power dynamics and the ways those can shift based on circumstances, work culture, prejudice, or even a twist of fate. And finally, Women Talking is a gripping series of conversations between women in an isolated religious community who have all been raped by the men in their midst and must decide on whether to leave or stay – the performances are rich and powerful, the story urgent and timely.
Prediction: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Spoiler: The Banshees of Inisherin
Preference: Everything Everywhere All at Once (though I’d be happy if Banshees, Fabelmans, TÁR, Triangle, or Women Talking won – it’s an incredible slate of nominees this year!)
