Let’s rank the 2023 Oscar Best Picture nominees
Here's how we rate this year's surprisingly exciting batch of Academy Award nominees. Will you agree? Of course not
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The 95th annual Academy Award nominations were announced earlier today and, like most years, the tale is told in numbers, including 11 (the amount of nominations bestowed upon Everything Everywhere All At Once and nine (the number of nods for The Banshees Of Inisherin and All Quiet On The Western Front). But there are other numbers that suggest, whether for creative or mercenary reasons, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that hands out the Oscars, is ready to pump the brakes on its seemingly irreversible slide into irrelevance. The first number is 16.6 million, which is the number of viewers who watched last year’s slaphappy ceremony, the second-lowest since the Nielsen ratings service began tracking the show. As old-school Oscar lovers age out, the Academy, at long last, realized that their survival depends on enticing the TikTok generation and those between the coasts to tune into its glitzy gala.
And that leads us to the second crucial number: 1 billion. For the first time in Oscar history, two Best Picture nominees have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, Avatar: The Way Of Water and Top Gun: Maverick. This is a promising sign that voters are finally using the extra five Best Picture slots added in 2009 for their intended purpose: to nominate big-budget blockbusters to get more people to care about who wins an Oscar. Of course, Way Of Water and Maverick helped resuscitate the theatrical moviegoing experience, which has been on life support since the beginning of the pandemic, so Hollywood can’t be faulted for rewarding them with a Best Picture nod.
Fear not, though, there are enough old guard voters to ensure that the Academy hasn’t totally succumbed to sequelitis. The 10 Best Picture nominees are collectively the most fair and comprehensive batch in years, ranging from the intellectual drama, Tár, to the one-percenter satire Triangle Of Sadness to Steven Spielberg’s remembrance from whence he came, The Fabelmans. So with T-minus 47 days until the March 12 ceremony on ABC, here are The A.V. Club’s rankings of all 10 Best Picture nominees for 2023. Spoiler alert: the Academy may deem them the best, but we may not…
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Honestly surprised the bottom~6 doesn’t bother me…. I’d put Elvis last, or under the actual AV Club building, is there one? First off…Everything All At Once is going to win, I don’t agree, but…ehhh ain’t mad about it either. It’s a fun film, with fantastic casting….Ke Huy Quan, I mean come on?!?! DATA/SHORT F’N ROUND?!?!?!?. Too easy, winner winner chicken dinner.Three left…. Tar, Banshees and Women. Lol, all three similar. Low budgeting talky/theater type…traditional winners. My personal favorite is Banshees. PLEASE GIVE ME LEVITY WITH MY PAIN. Women next, and then Tar. Tar has the problem of an absolute insufferable main character, thanks Cate.I feel like, honestly, no joking, Women Talking is the most powerful film this year, its just dry af.
That insufferable main character is going to walk away with an Oscar. I mean Michelle Yeoh is getting the love she deserves, but Blanchett had people googling whether or not Lydia Tár was a real person on their way out of the theater. If that isn’t acting then I don’t know what is.
Hey. Hey. Hey. Don’t get mad… I was essentially agreeing with you in my comment. Sorry if I lack subtly, it’s hard out there for a fafan.I was essentially saying, or failed at, saying Cate is so fucking amazing she killed her movie….Not everything is an argument bud.
“Blanchett had people googling whether or not Lydia Tár was a real person on their way out of the theater.”That would be like maybe a dozen people, my dude. LolAs good as it is, there was practically no one in the theater the weekend I saw Tár, which was just the first weekend after its release. It had a budget of $35 million, but it only took home about $7 million in the world wide box office, making it a financial failure. I’d consider Blanchett for Best Actress, but overall Tár is a very niche movie that audiences didn’t go for, and with that, I’d say the win should go to Everything Everywhere All At Once.
To be fair, I googled “Do butt plugs make you good at kung fu” after watching EEAAO.
Which is baffling, because the movie tells us she’s from Staten Island and that’s so far-fetched and impossible to believe it’s not even funny. Reverseshot.org wrote a really good piece on that illusion-killing detail.
I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once last week, and it was fine. The cast was excellent, and (ironically) the movie comes to life when they set aside the action and let Michelle Yeoh interact with different versions of Ke Huy Quan. And the fights were nicely choreographed. But it buys into so many overused tropes, especially in the third act, that it didn’t feel “original” exactly. If I never see another action movie that uses slow-motion close-ups to wring personal drama out of a third-act fight, it’ll be too soon. That shit was played out in Return of the King, and there have been infinity Marvel movies since then.
My rankings:The ones I’ve seen:Everything Everywhere All at Once (3 times – the first two times at the cinema)All the rest:
Need a link?
Nah, I’m good thanks.
You rank them?! Asshole
The fact that [Cameron] wasn’t nominated for Best Director seems a bit odd since everything Avatar all at once would not exist without him.
Feels more right that he’s nominated as a producer then. (Similarly, that’s why I wanted Endgame to win Best Picture: Fiege would’ve won for, basically, 23 movies at once. If that’s not the best producing job ever, what is?)
A Lifetime Achievement Award is what’s used to reward someone for multiple years rather than single film.
In theory, yes, but it’s pretty clear that the Academy has frequently given an award to a subpar film or performance in order to send the unstated message “You’ve been doing great work, sorry we’ve overlooked it because we (were too busy honoring flashes-in-the-pan|weren’t paying close enough attention|are stubbornly biased against your usual genre), but here’s a little something for you”.And “subpar” in this context simply means “worse than the honoree’s typical work”, not necessarily mediocre or bad.
Ah, like Al Pacino’s for Scent of a Woman (which I admittedly haven’t seen) or Scorsese’s for The Departed. I believe Jeremy Irons’ attributed his Reversal of Fortune win to Dead Ringers.
Yes, exactly. I’m surprised this site hasn’t made a slideshow of such Oscars yet.
Scent of a Woman is worth watching, but it also gave us the “HOO-Ahh!” meme that’s stuck with Pacino ever since. Other than Scarface he’d been pretty restrained up until then.I wasn’t mad at the Departed win for Scorsese, it’s just amusing that the Academy clearly grabbed the next film he did after John Stewart’s Three-6 Mafia crack and said “yep – good enough!”
Honorary Oscars are for people who’ve never won a competitive.See: Peter Weir, 0-6. Diane Warren, 0-13
If he were nominated for the screenplay, James Cameron would’ve been nominated for best ADAPTED screenplay. That’s the rule for sequels, hence Top Gun’s nomination in that category
I disagree about Triangle losing focus in its third act. It’s the island section that shows us that it’s not just that these specific wealthy people are particularly bad. It’s the entire power structure that’s the problem. Once the tables are turned, the woman who was previously at the lowest rung of the ladder starts to become as corrupt as the others. At first, it’s just righteous comeuppance for the rich idiots but, eventually, she misuses her power as well and then acts horribly when confronted with the possibility of losing it and returning to the bottom.It’s this section that lets us know that we’re not ONLY making fun of shitty 1%ers, but rather commenting on how any social structure that allows a few to have so much power is inherently broken. We need to see the power structure flipped to show that.In fact, a number of Ostlund’s comments have made it clear that a major part of his goal with the movie was to explore how women would become MeToo-esque sexual predators if we lived in a matriarchal society instead of a patriarchal one. I’m not sure I 100% agree with him on that point, but you can’t say he wasn’t focussed with his messaging.It reminds me of the last third of The Lobster. A lot of people complained that the section with the exiles was less funny than the stuff early on in that film and that’s probably true. However, if you only keep the scenes in with the easier targets, you lose a lot of the satirical nuance.
I actually didn’t know what Triangle was about until now, and am fully intrigued. But to your point, it’s often been pointed out that the only thing keeping many people from abusing power is their current lack of any. Everyone thinks they would be kind and generous if they were powerful and wealthy, despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary.
well said
I’ll be honest, this is a pretty underwhelming roster. Just go with Maverick, it was everyone’s favorite movie this year anyway.
Was it? I’d rank Everything Everywhere All at Once above it for sure. I also thought Tar was a better movie then Top Gun
I would rank not only Tar and EEAAO above Top Gun: Maverick, but also Banshees (my favorite film of the year) and The Fabelmans. I haven’t seen the other five.
Honestly, I’d even put Elvis above Maverick. But that’s me.
I enjoyed Maverick as well, but it’s kinda hard to justify a 2023 award for a movie that came out in 1994.
Oscars aren’t about popularity. But they shouldn’t ignore audience reaction either. Going with Tar or Banshees when there’s a variety of successful quality options here would not be in the Oscars’ best interests with their audiences diminishing.
Sorta thought someone else would’ve done this by now, but anyway:10. Triangle of Sadness9. Elvis 8. Avatar: The Way of Water 7. The Fabelmans 6. All Quiet on the Western Front 5. Top Gun: Maverick 4. Women Talking 3. Everything Everywhere All at Once 2. The Banshees of Inisherin 1. Tár
Of those I’ve seen:4. The Banshees of Inisherin3. Tár2. Women Talking1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
Of those I’ve seen7. Elvis6. Triangle of Sadness5. Avatar: The Way of Water4. The Banshees of Inisherin3. Top Gun: Maverick2. Tár1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
It’s not dildos,it’s butt plugs that EEAAO partisans would beat Oscar voters with. Joke fail
Different scene
Did you miss the scene where Stephanie Hsu summons two giant dildos and beats someone with them?Joke win.
Whoops! forgot that scene…there was a lot going on in that movie.Rebuke fail on my part.
Tom Hanks, who did not receive an Oscar nomination for once…The Academy has been over Hanks for more than two decades: He has only been nominated once since 2001’s Cast Away, for playing Mr. Rogers in 2019’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
The Fabelman movie was the worst superhero movie I’ve seen in ages.
It’s origin part 1. He didn’t get supernatural power until he met David Lynch the second time.
Best Picture nominees are going to include films with a dildo fight, a literal shit-storm, Tom Cruise going Mach 10, and Steven Spielberg announcing his Oedipal complex to the world. There are 2 separate films involving donkey murder. James Cameron’s action movie about blue catfolk teaming up with superwhales to fight space marines might legitimately be the dullest film on the roster.
What a year!
Did you still piss that La la land didn’t win?
The Academy can certainly be faulted for giving Top Gun: Maverick a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, rather than Best Cinematography.
The overall consensus, though, is that Butler steals the show.
You can’t “steal” the show when you’re the lead/title character of a biopic. It’s yours to begin with!
Since Cameron has a reputation of being, how shall we say this, not the
best writer in town, a Best Original Screenplay nod has once again
eluded him.
Again, Top Gun: Maverick.
scripted by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie,
six nominations—a ploy to encourage ceremony viewership? Not when you
consider the film on its own merits.
Yes, that Screenplay nomination is undeserved on its merits.
You can’t “steal” the show when you’re the lead/title character of a biopic. It’s yours to begin with!You obviously haven’t seen the film, because then you’d know Tom Hanks’s grotesque Elmer Fudd impresario Colonel is basically the lead of the movie.
True, I haven’t seen it, in part because of the complaints I heard about that character.
Since Cameron has a reputation of being, how shall we say this, not the best writer in town He used to be so, SO much better.
1. EEAAO2. Banshees of Inisherin3. The Fabelmans4. Women Talking5. Top Gun: Maverick6. Elvis7. Avatar8. Tar9. Triangle of SadnessHaven’t seen All Quiet yet. But man, Tar just really really really didn’t do it for me. I didn’t get the creepy ghost story vibes, I didn’t get the cancel-culture satire, I didn’t get anything from it at all. Sure, Blanchett is good, but she could sleepwalk her way through this role and still be decent. I’m only putting it above Triangle of Sadness because I absolutely hated that movie’s final 25 seconds, such a bullshit cut to credits. But on the other hand, at least it made me actually feel something…hm….no, still putting it at 9.
I’m surprised that Tar was supposed to be funny. I watched it all wrong, I guess.
Look, I also really liked The Banshees of Inisherin, but hell no, it’s absolutely not better than Everything Everywhere All At Once.Tár is a very good film, but it’s incredibly niche. Most people don’t go into it unless they’re already attached to an aspect of it—like maybe you were a music major or minor in college (like I was). AV Club gave the film a lot more flowery descriptors than it actually has, calling it a “mystery, thriller, character study, and laugh-out-loud comedy” when it’s really just a well rounded drama. Funny enough, all those descriptors fit well within describing Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is such a unique cross-genre hit than I’d have to place it at #1 just because it happens to be… well, everything, and y’all really gotta give it props for its success.
Seems like it has a very Whiplash vibe to it. I’m sure I’ll get to it at some point but wouldn’t say it grabbed me.
Great
1. Everything Everywhere All at Once2. Women Talking3. The Banshees of InisherinSolid but Below Par for Director4. The Fabelmans
Pretty and Fun5. Avatar: The Way of WaterTechnically Sound but Turgid and Vacuous
6. TAR7. Triangle of Sadness8. Elvis
Warmed-over Nostalgic Military Propaganda8. Top Gun: Maverick
Haven’t seen All Quiet. Overall an underwhelming lineup.
I don’t get the propaganda charge leveled at Maverick. The original? Fine. But this one didn’t exactly cast the Navy in the most flattering light.
Big powerful invincible American man Tom Cruise, with the actual might of Navy money and real war machines, obliterating a literally nameless, faceless Foreign Enemy? Reads like straight propaganda to me.
Thank you for calling out Tar. Its such a cold, vile film (with an outstanding central performance).I was left with the distinct feeling that Todd Field would defend a sex pest if they could write a sonata.
It’s been well over a decade and I’m still annoyed at the decision to expand the Best Picture slate of nominees. It feels patronizing. We all know Top Gun and Avatar wouldn’t have been nominated if there were only five slots, and we all know they’re not winning now. The whole thing is just an excuse for them to nominate the movies people actually paid to see before they hand the statue to the less popular movie that ran the best campaign.
The lead role cannot “steal the show.” That phrase has always meant someone in a small or even tiny role who grabs the attention of the audience. Playing Elvis in a movie called Elvis pretty well means this is impossible.
The Triangle of Sadness is so comically overrated. The “ghastly” vomit scene lasts all of about 3 minutes and isn’t close to being as gnarly as the vomit scene in Stand By Me. After that, the film overall is ungodly boring with an ending that will make you want to kick your tv screen in because of how weak it is. The comical thing is the movie is making fun of the people who voted this film in for Best Picture, they are just too stupid to realize it.
I have seen 2.5 of these. I need to catch up.
okay i’m done
EEAAO was nowhere near as good as some make it out to be. It was an okay but ultimately forgettable film.
This is probably just me but I’m still annoyed so many people said All Quiet is faithful to the book. Its not even remotely faithful beyond the setting and some character names. Its a decent 1917ish gory war movie but its not All Quiet on the Western Front.