As we approach the 2023 Oscars, a surprisingly large number of the night’s biggest races are still too close to call. Here’s the Vogue verdict on who will ultimately win, who should win, and who should’ve been a contender in all of the top eight categories.
Best Picture
Who will win: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should’ve been a contender: RRR
The multiverse-spanning, nerve-jangling, heartwarming action epic is now a shoo-in for best picture, having scooped the top prizes at the Critics Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, SAGs, and the Producers Guild of America Awards. Hot on its heels is the BAFTA best-film winner All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as Top Gun: Maverick, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, and Tár, though it seems unlikely that any of them will manage to catch up at this point. Nor should they—the Daniels’s blockbuster would be an incredibly worthy winner that the Academy could feel good about. We’d love to have seen RRR in the mix too, though—the Telugu sensation which, controversially, wasn’t chosen as India’s entry for best international feature but is widely expected to pick up the Oscar for best original song for “Naatu Naatu.”
Best Director
Who will win: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Todd Field for Tár
Who should’ve been a contender: Charlotte Wells for Aftersun
After their victory at the Directors Guild of America Awards, the Daniels look unstoppable—and have more than earned their Oscars with their thrillingly innovative work. If anyone can cause an upset, it’s industry veteran and Academy favorite Steven Spielberg, for his semi-autobiographical family drama The Fabelmans (he’s taken home this statuette twice before, albeit more than two decades ago). However, it would be more exciting to see Todd Field spoil for the meticulously directed Tár. There’s a small chance that the film, with its six nominations, could leave the ceremony empty-handed—that’d be a gross injustice and this is perhaps the prize it most deserves. Equally deserving is Charlotte Wells, who received the DGA Award for best first film with her stunningly realized debut, Aftersun, and ought to have landed a spot on this all-male shortlist.
Best Actor
Who will win: Austin Butler for Elvis
Who should win: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin
Who should’ve been a contender: Jeremy Pope for The Inspection
Elvis’s Austin Butler and The Whale’s Brendan Fraser are still neck and neck—with the former having snagged the Golden Globe and BAFTA, and the latter the SAG and Critics Choice Award—but we think Butler has what it takes to go all the way. Eight-time nominee Elvis was more widely embraced by the Academy than the more divisive The Whale, and Butler seems the more likely winner considering the number of showy portrayals of real-life figures that have been rewarded in recent years (Will Smith’s Richard Williams in King Richard, Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Gary Oldman’s Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour). It would be satisfying to see Colin Farrell come from behind and take it, though, for his quieter, endearing turn as the simple-minded Pádraic in The Banshees of Inisherin—and would’ve been even more so to see Jeremy Pope’s sensitive, layered performance in The Inspection recognized by the voting body.
Best Actress
Who will win: Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should’ve been a contender: Danielle Deadwyler for Till
With just days to go, the most closely watched race hangs on a knife edge: after her rousing speech following her Golden Globe and SAG wins, Michelle Yeoh appears to be on the cusp of a historic victory, but there’s no counting out BAFTA and Critics Choice Award recipient Cate Blanchett for her towering performance in Tár. Their fellow nominees—Blonde’s Ana de Armas, The Fabelmans’s Michelle Williams, and To Leslie’s Andrea Riseborough—delivered compelling turns, but if anyone could have truly given Yeoh and Blanchett a run for their money, it’s Till’s formidable Danielle Deadwyler. Her snub remains one of this year’s most heartbreaking.
Best Supporting Actor
Who will win: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should’ve been a contender: Paul Dano for The Fabelmans
The only presumed lock in the acting races is Ke Huy Quan for his chameleonic work in Everything Everywhere All at Once, not to mention a deeply moving campaign which focused on his triumphant return to the industry after becoming disillusioned as a child actor. In the wake of his tearful, goosebump-inducing SAG acceptance speech, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else taking home this prize (he’s also won the Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award, and Critics Choice Award). Among the other four hopefuls is acting legend Judd Hirsch, for his explosive, under-10-minute cameo in The Fabelmans, but we would’ve preferred to see Paul Dano make the cut instead, for his far more measured take on the tragic Burt Fabelman, a fictionalized version of Spielberg’s own father, Arnold.
Best Supporting Actress
Who will win: Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Who should’ve been a contender: Jessie Buckley for Women Talking
In this highly competitive category, three actors have been surging of late: SAG winner Jamie Lee Curtis; Critics Choice Award and Golden Globe recipient Angela Bassett; and the BAFTA’s choice, Kerry Condon. Any of them could feasibly secure the statuette, but Curtis’s stature in the industry, the support behind Everything Everywhere All at Once across the board, and the rapturous reception to her delightful acceptance speech at the SAGs means that she likely has the most momentum. Bassett is just as, if not more, deserving, though, for her embodiment of the grieving Queen Ramonda. Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Stephanie Hsu and The Whale’s Hong Chau have both earned their places on the line-up, too, with scene-stealing turns, but could a sixth spot be added, we would love to have seen Jessie Buckley included for her initially thorny and then painfully poignant performance in Women Talking.
Best Original Screenplay
Who will win: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Who should win: Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
Who should’ve been a contender: Charlotte Wells for Aftersun
Seven-time Oscar nominee Martin McDonagh has won only once (for his live action short Six Shooter), and never for a feature-length project. His script for the whimsical tragicomedy The Banshees of Inisherin is one of his finest to date, and has so far brought him a BAFTA and Golden Globe. However, he faces stiff competition from the Daniels, whose haul includes the Critics Choice Award, Independent Spirit Award, and the Writers Guild of America Award for best screenplay. They should prevail, given the Academy’s recent tendency to reward inventive films with big, zeitgeist-defining ideas (Promising Young Woman, Parasite, Get Out). The three other worthy contenders are The Fabelmans, Tár, and Triangle of Sadness, but Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun is conspicuous in its absence—a starkly lyrical screenplay that was easily among the year’s best.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Who will win: Sarah Polley for Women Talking
Who should win: Sarah Polley for Women Talking
Who should’ve been a contender: David Kajganich for Bones and All
Edward Berger, Ian Stokell, and Lesley Paterson could very well scoop this prize for All Quiet on the Western Front, as they did at the BAFTAs, but Sarah Polley’s best adapted screenplay wins at the Critics Choice Awards and Writers Guild of America Awards for her harrowing, expertly calibrated Women Talking suggests that she has the advantage—and rightly so. The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who penned Living, is a potential spoiler too, but we wish David Kajganich had gotten a look in here for his haunting adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’s Bones and All.
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Radhika Seth