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Oscar 2023 Winner Predictions: Picture

And so we come to the conclusion of our annual month-long existential cosplay.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once
Photo: A24

And so we come to the conclusion of our annual month-long existential cosplay, and not a moment too soon. Not long after the Oscar nominations were announced, I wondered on Twitter what could be said of an industry that, in five consecutive years, would come up with the following list of best picture winners: Green Book, Parasite, Nomadland, CODA, and now (almost surely) Everything Everywhere All at Once. Year by year, we’re increasingly realizing the answer to that question is, “Not much.”

But that stance could be merely our own, even in an era of such nihilism that even Tommy Wiseau’s The Room has the level of cultural cachet worthy of getting fed through the Gus Van Sant/Psycho postmodernism generator. For so many others in the field of Oscar prognostication who appear to have more skin in the game than us, the answer to that aforementioned question is, to borrow from Jerri Blank, “I’ve got something to say!”

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For far too many award bloggers, the increasingly erratic Oscar outcomes are less a reflection of the continually diminished status of movies in the pop-cultural conversation and more a testament to our all-encompassing culture wars coming home to roost. Despite copious evidence that Oscar has never had more international curiosity, you can throw a stone and hit half a dozen pundits who are convinced—and who come armed with literal charts—that Academy voters are so inextricably tied up in quintessentially American identity politics that they can no longer be trusted to serve as barometers of taste. (As though they’ve ever functioned as such.)

Which makes it even more ironic that this year’s race centers around the first genuinely populist juggernaut the Oscars have been blessed to coronate since, arguably, Slumdog Millionaire. Everything Everywhere All at Once is, for better and for worse, a beloved and very much plugged-in piece of popular filmmaking—a gleefully scatological, feature-length TikTok dance routine and also a heartfelt family drama primarily concerned with the intergenerational immigrant experience. There’s not a relevant box that the film doesn’t check, but to hear some tell it, its inevitable triumph will only add to the Academy’s increasing shame for not capitulating to the red meat of yesteryear’s stars-and-stripes monoculture in the form of Top Gun: Maverick, the very much same-but-better reboot to an action blockbuster that no self-respecting critic 10 years ago could’ve endorsed with a straight face.

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I will readily admit that, throughout the weeks-long rollout of our predictions, I’ve been the one questioning whether Everything Everywhere All at Once would have what it takes to survive a ranked-choice ballot. And whether it’s certain plurality of first-choice rankings would be weighty enough to counteract its near-equally certain surfeit of last-place rankings from what we’re from here on out going to refer to as the Academy’s BAFTA demographic.

But if the last few weekends’ worth of guild awards and the fresh round of anonymous Oscar voter ballots have proven anything, it’s that not only does Everything Everywhere All at Once have this one pretty well locked down—it’s a total blow out. And if this reality happens to leave Oscar fandom’s outspoken reactionary wing left out in the cold, let’s hope that collateral damage leaves the awards conversation next year all quiet on the western front.

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Could Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Should Win: The Fabelmans or Tár

Eric Henderson

Eric Henderson is the web content manager for WCCO-TV. His writing has also appeared in City Pages.

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