The 95th Academy Awards are this Sunday, March 12th. If you are a film fanatic or someone who loves drama, don’t miss the opportunity to see your favorite celebrities, actresses, actors, directors, and influencers under one roof for one of the most important nights for Hollywood. Personally, I don’t think the Academy is the final judgment about the value of what is good or not in the film industry. I think everyone should be able to enjoy every movie and evaluate it under one’s personal criteria. However, like in sports, it is fun to root for your favorites, gather with friends, involve yourself in the drama, and see who will win the awards.
Here are my predictions of who will win “The Big Five” categories, which include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay (either Best Original Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay). Let’s see how many I got correct!
Best Picture
Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
Other Favorites: Women Talking (2022) by Sarah Polley, The Fabelmans (2022) by Steven Speilberg, and Triangle of Sadness (2022) by Ruben Östlund.
Rest of the Nominees: Top Gun: Maverick (2022) by Joseph Kosinski, The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) by Martin McDonagh, All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) by Edward Berger, Avatar 2 (2022) by James Cameron, Elvis (2022) by Baz Luhrmann, and Tár (2022) by Todd Field.
Best Director
Winner: Todd Field (Tár).
Rest of the Nominees: Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Steven Speilberg (The Fabelmans), and Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness).
Best Actress
Winner: Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Other Favorites: Cate Blanchett (Tár)
Rest of the Nominees: Ana de Armas (Blonde), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie).
Best Actor
Winner: Brendan Fraser (The Whale).
Rest of the Nominees: Austin Butler (Elvis), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Bill Nighy (Living).
Best Original Screenplay
Winner: Triangle of Sadness, written by Ruben Östlund.
Other Favorites: Everything Everywhere All at Once, written by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
Rest of the Nominees: The Banshees of Inisherin, written by Martin McDonagh, The Fabelmans, written by Steven Speilberg & Tony Kushner and Tár, written by Todd Field.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner: Women Talking, written by Sarah Polley.
Other Favorites: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, written by Rian Johnson.
Rest of the Nominees: All Quiet On The Western Front, written by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, and Ian Stokell, Living, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, Top Gun: Maverick, written by Christopher McQuarrie, Eric Warren Singer, and Ehren Kruger.
There’s No Room for Everyone
Apart from Everything Everywhere All at Once, Women Talking, and… Triangle of Sadness, I found it difficult to decide who I think will win the Oscar. Not because the movies are fantastic as they all have strong and weak elements, but because of who is behind each film.
Everything Everywhere All at Once has to be one of my favorite movies from the 2022 season. With strong performances from lead actress Michelle Yeoh and supporting actors Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis, this film has 11 Oscars nominations and brought in over $100 million in gross revenue, winning the hearts of many people with such a beautiful story about overcoming generational trauma. I would believe in plain sight that the Academy is more inclusive than ever in giving Asian and Asian-American people a space to show the world what they are capable of. But if you review the list again, you will see that inclusivity ends there, leaving the audience thinking that for the Academy there can’t be room for everyone who is not white and male.
RECAP
Director and Screenwriter Sarah Polley (Women Talking) is the only female nominated in two big categories this year (Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay). Lesley Paterson is the other female nominee but shares her nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for All Quiet On The Western Front with her co-writers, Edward Berger and Ian Stokell. British-Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro is the only nominee with an Asian background in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay for Living. Chinese-Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh and Cuban actress Ana de Armas (Blonde) are the only female actresses from a minority ethnicity nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role, leaving out of the list the fantastic performance of African-American actress Viola Davis (Women King). There are no BIPOC, Hispanic/Latin leads or directors nominated.
What this means for me is that each year the focus of the Academy changes whether that focus is to support women, BIPOC, Asian, Hispanic/Latin, or the LGBTQ+ community, they can only give the spotlight for a brief amount of time to one, securing the rest of the spots to loyal Hollywood members, which are still disproportionatelywhite and male. And if the Academy remains stubborn and resistant to change, I can see the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trend worldwide again since 2016. What are your thoughts? And who do you think deserves to win?