The 2023 Academy Awards take place this Sunday, and film fans have been scrambling to make their picks for who will be taking home a little gold man. The internet is split — largely between the Everything Everywhere All At Once naysayers and those who would crown the Daniels’ maximalist voyage into the infinite multiverse the greatest film of all time. The campaigns trail is as ripe with strategy as ever: Ke Huy Quan has stolen hearts with every acceptance speech, the determined spirit of Elvis Presley still inhabits Austin Butler, and Andrea Riseborough has been nominated for Best Actress for the little-seen To Leslie. With the competition raging on, it’s easy to get lost in online debate and algorithmic projections of who’s going to win. To make it a little easier, the team here at A RABBIT’S FOOT have compiled the definitive Oscar ballot to ponder over the coming week (though if you would like to pick your own, scroll to the bottom of the for an empty template on us.) Below you can see our picks for each award below — the films we hope will win, and the films we think will.
Did Ariana Debose hurt or help Angela Bassett’s chances at winning best actress in a supporting role? We don’t have the answer to that question, but if it was up to us, Bassett would be taking the stage in a heartbeat for her show stopping performance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler’s moving tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman. Other picks (coded in blue) represent some of our favourite acts of filmmaking from the past year, even if they don’t necessarily reflect the Academy’s likely choice: Laura Poitras’ magnificent All The Beauty and The Bloodshed, for example, as well as legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick for Best Editing and the Martin McDonagh’s under-hyped The Banshees of Inisherin for best Adapted Screenplay.
As excited as we are to see Michelle Yeoh stand on stage with a Best Actress Oscar in hand — an overdue win if there ever was one, check out her Criterion retrospective to see why — it’s hard not to feel irked by the Academy’s most glaring oversights this year. International gems like Saim Sadiq’s Joyland, Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave, and Davy Chou’s Return To Seoul all fell by the wayside this season, as did Damien Chazelle’s explosive return to the big screen with Babylon, and Kogonada’s minimalist masterpiece After Yang (featuring the other great Farrell performance from the past year).
The snubs, along with increasingly low ratings, might signal the Oscar’s fading relevancy, though on the other hand this looks to be one of the more exciting Oscar races since Parasite swept the awards, what feels like, way back in 2020. For one, legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick has been nominated for Best Film, soothing the growing feeling that the golden age of the movie star and traditional blockbuster are long gone. Similarly, Everything Everywhere All At Once has brought, not only another Asian-led production to the forefront of the Oscar race, but a refreshing change of pace — with the Academy choosing an absurd maximalist sci-fi head-trip to contend with your more typical Academy-bait, and pointing to an Oscar night that might yet be one to remember.
Want to fill in your own ballot? Save the below image and get picking!
