Countdown to the Oscars: Best Visual Effects

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Visual Effects

The nominees are:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Batman

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Top Gun: Maverick

Every year, we start this countdown with this category. At this point, it’s a tradition. I suppose the craven reason is because this is the category with the most films a majority of people will recognize. That becomes less and less the case as we get deeper and deeper into the Oscars race. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Dolby this year: The Academy Awards got popular again. Best Picture this year includes four unequivocal hits, including two of the biggest movies of all time. The producers of the show, as well as executives at ABC, must be ecstatic.

For us, this means we will be discussing a lot of movies people have heard of, and it means the often blockbuster-heavy Visual Effects lineup is also unusually Best Picture heavy. Three of the five films nominated for Visual Effects are in the Best Picture race, something that has only happened two other times in Academy history. The first was in 1940, when there were 14 nominees and the category meant something very different. The other is a year we always talk about: 2015, when sci-fi indie Ex-Machina shocked the room and beat out the epics.

That was one of the more shocking moments in recent Oscars history – a wholly deserved win for an excellent film, but shocking nonetheless. The most likely scenario is that the three Best Picture nominees that year (The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Martian) all split the vote, allowing the smaller-scale film to sneak up the middle and take the award. 

This year, there is no such “small” film in the race. These are all massive epics of the sort the Academy usually rewards. In addition, the reason we talk about 2015 so much is because it is such a baffling outlier in this category. Apart from that one time, going back to 1977, when the modern history of this category really took shape, if there is a Best Picture nominee in the lineup, it wins. If there are multiple Best Picture nominees, one of them wins. I would not expect this year to break that tradition, particularly not with the king of effects-based filmmaking in the hunt.

Avatar: The Way of Water – In the 13 years between the original Avatar and its sequel, visual effects have taken a tremendous leap as an artform. Much of that leap can be attributed to the work James Cameron and his Oscar-winning effects team pioneered on that first film. Now, they are back with the next great innovation in computer effects. The film is a visual extravaganza, and while I cannot say the high frame rate or 3D effects are always effective, both look better than any other film that has ever tried the medium.

Top Gun: Maverick – The effects in Joseph Kosinski’s high-flying action picture are very good, but more than anything, this film’s appearance among these nominees is just the latest, almost undeniable argument that the Academy needs a stunt performance Oscar. These days, Tom Cruise films are sold on the fact that he does all of his own stunts, each more death-defying than the last. One of the huge selling points of this film specifically is that the jets are really in the air – real pilots, real speed. Yes, the visual effects make a massive contribution to Maverick’s success, but what the Academy truly wants to reward are the stunts. Maybe someday.

All Quiet on the Western Front – Though the only film in this quintet that would not be considered a huge blockbuster, Edward Berger’s film is still a massive war epic, made all the more impressive by the fact that it was accomplished on a mere $20 million budget. Unfortunately, most of the world did not get to see this Netflix release on the big screen, where its size and scope would be most intensely felt. However, whether in the theater or at home, Berger and his effects team lay the cold reality of war right at your feet in ways we have rarely seen.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – This is one of the more curious nominees in recent years. This is not because it is not deserving but because its Best Picture-nominated predecessor was not cited in this category. Perhaps, Ryan Coogler and his team’s accomplishment in bringing the underwater nation of Talokan to life was too great to ignore. From an effects standpoint, those sequences certainly stand out as some of the most gorgeously rendered in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the nomination is well earned.

The Batman – After years of dreariness and grime, Matt Reeves’ The Batman was a breath of fresh air in the chronicles of the Caped Crusader, a return to the visual inventiveness of the Christopher Nolan or Tim Burton series. Despite being rendered primarily in computers, Gotham City feels real again in a way it has not since The Dark Knight in 2008. There is a visceral quality to the film’s action sequences that gives them more punch than anything in the recent Justice League films.

The final analysis

It’s Avatar: The Way of Water. We can hem and haw and come up with reasons for other winners in this category, but it would be disingenuous. It’s Avatar. Apart from its hamfisted but good-hearted environmental message, this franchise’s entire raison d’être is to push the medium forward into uncharted territory, to show us what brilliant effects properly deployed by a master of the form can truly do. The Academy knows this and will reward it accordingly.

Once again going back to 1977, when Star Wars ushered in the era of the modern special effects film, no filmmaker has directed more movies to the Visual Effects Academy Award than James Cameron. He has five on his resumé: Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and Avatar. A sixth will put him two ahead of the next two directors on the list, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, who each have four. Cameron is the undisputed king of the box office, but as his track record proves, he is also the king of visual effects.

Will win: Avatar: The Way of Water

Should win: Avatar: The Way of Water

Should have been here: Bardo

A word on my favorite snub: Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo exists in the dream state between the real and the imagined. It presents heightened reality that is at once familiar and unsettlingly foreign. Like the nominees here, Bardo is an epic, but it is an epic of emotion rather than whiz-bang action. It would be nice to see more of these movies in the category on a regular basis.

Next time: Makeup and Hairstyling

Countdown to the Oscars: The marathon becomes a sprint

Alright, here we go. We’ve got 25 days until the Academy Awards and 23 categories to cover. Many races are blissfully open right now, but there are plenty of precursors in the next few weeks waiting to tell us which way the wind is blowing. I have my hunches, but that is all they are for the moment. The Directors Guild will announce its winners Saturday. The BAFTAs take place Sunday. The PGA Awards are Feb. 25, and the SAG Awards roll around Feb 26. That’s a lot of info about to come our way, but let’s take stock of where we think we stand.

As the nominations leader and the most critically acclaimed film of the year, Everything Everywhere All at Once is your de facto frontrunner. People love this movie, and love matters when it comes to voting for Best Picture. On my scorecard, for the time being, I have the film converting five of its 11 nominations into statues, taking home Picture, Director and Original Screenplay for the Daniels, Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan, and Editing. 

The film is also probably running around second or third place in most of its other categories. In particular, there is heat on Michelle Yeoh to catch up and take Best Actress from presumed favorite Cate Blanchett. Five wins would already be the most for a Best Picture winner since The Artist in 2011. Six or more and we’re getting into Slumdog Millionaire sweep territory, which has only happened a couple times this century. But if people truly love this film as much as it seems, there is every possibility they will just mark the box next to it all the way down the ballot.

All that said, the leader at this point in the race doesn’t always hold to win. If we called the race at this point, your past winners would include The Power of the Dog, 1917, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, and La La Land, and those are just examples from the past six years. So, it’s worth it to wonder what may be lurking with a shot.

The Banshees of Inisherin is second in nominations, tied with All Quiet on the Western Front. It has support from the actors branch, the largest branch of voters, though it should be noted both this and Everything Everywhere have four acting nods. Writer-director Martin McDonagh is well liked by the Academy, and it is hard to find anyone with anything truly negative to say about the film.

For my two cents, Todd Field’s TÁR is probably sitting in third place by virtue of the fact that it has nominations in all of the most important categories (Picture, Director, Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing, and Cinematography) and it has the patina of a true masterpiece. It has the feel of a Roma or There Will Be Blood, historic feats of filmmaking that will be remembered long after the Oscars race has run its course. They are movies that critics of the Academy Awards would call “too good to win Best Picture,” a suggestion that the Academy is too middlebrow to reward something so artful and majestic.

Neither film has the “love” factor to it, though. Banshees is well liked and TÁR is admired, but Everything Everywhere is beloved. If we are going by that metric, Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick are probably the next two after the frontrunner. 

If Top Gun: Maverick were going to win, it would probably have a Best Director nomination. CODA won without one last year, but that was a movie admired for its acting and writing. Top Gun is absolutely a director’s picture, which makes its lack of a nomination there suspicious from a Best Picture potential standpoint.

Elvis, on the other hand, is an interesting case. It is very divisive. People either love it or they hate it, which is usually not the kind of film that wins the top prize, unless there are enough people who love it. However, none of that divisiveness precludes it from being a big winner on the night, and as it stands, I have it predicted in four of the eight categories for which it is nominated.

I am betting on Austin Butler to triumph in a truly competitive Best Actor race. I am going out on a limb to predict the four big action movies nominated for Sound split the vote and the award falls to the musical. Meanwhile, the flashiness of the Production Design and Cinematography could easily win voters over. Honestly, Costume Design and Makeup and Hairstyling are not out of the question either. 

Could Elvis be this year’s Mad Max: Fury Road or La La Land, scooping up all the crafts awards while another movie holds sway at the top of the ballot? It is at least first or second in five of the six categories I just named, with Sound the exception where I am currently projecting something a little wonky – which I reserve the right to change when we get there.

In the acting races, Quan is running away with Supporting Actor and no one has yet stepped up to challenge Angela Bassett for Supporting Actress. Blanchett had a big lead in Actress at the beginning of the season, but all the support for Everything Everywhere has people switching their bets to Yeoh. I am not ready to go that far, but we’ll see what BAFTA and SAG have to say. 

And, that just leaves Best Actor, a three-way race with no clear favorite as of this date. Again, BAFTA and SAG will change that, unless they split, which is entirely possible. Maybe Butler wins both and the race is over. Maybe the Brits go for Colin Farrell and SAG goes with Brendan Fraser, which would leave all options on the table. If asked to rank them, currently, I would have Butler, then Farrell, then Fraser, but I don’t think there is a lot separating them.

We’ll save most of the below-the-line analysis for the rest of this series, as well as the shorts, the docs, and the animated and international features. I am excited for the race ahead. There are a lot of great artists nominated for tremendous work, and many of them are within striking distance of a win. It’s all possible right now, which makes this the best time of the season. As the possibilities come off the table and certain wins become inevitable, it gets less and less fun. So for now, let’s enjoy the mystery.

Countdown to the Oscars: Ranking the Best Picture contenders

Never done this before on the site, but I have seen these rankings going around and it seemed like fun, so let’s give it a try. We need to do something while we wait for voting to begin and the awards picture to come into focus. Just to be clear, this is not a ranking of what I think has the best chance to win the Oscar for Best Picture – that will come a little later – but instead, this is a rundown of my personal preferences among the nominees. Which are the best and worst films in the lineup?

Half of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture this year made my personal top 10 list, so all in all, I would call this an excellent year for the Academy Awards. Among the five that did not make my top, I consider three high-quality entertainments, one an odd little misfire, and one a truly baffling inclusion. So, let’s start there.

2022 Best Picture nominees ranked:

10. Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann

If you can say anything about Luhrmann, it is that he takes big swings. Elvis is a huge swing, but apart from Austin Butler’s truly wonderful leading performance, it is also a huge miss. The director has made just six features in a 30-year film career. This is his first in nine years, dating back to a mostly ill-conceived Great Gatsby adaptation in 2013. In that time, his filmmaking style has not mellowed. If anything, Elvis finds Luhrmann at his most frenzied, swinging his camera to and fro, cutting the narrative to ribbons, and encouraging the hammiest villain performance this side of a Bond movie.

Remarkably, this is not the most maximalist film in the lineup this year (that would be the next movie up on this list), but it is the one putting all that effort in service of a story that never seems that interested in digging deeper than the surface. Butler is the only person in this enterprise determined to pull reality from the clutches of Luhrmann’s glitzy extravagance, and his Best Actor nomination is well deserved. Following closely on the heels of Bohemian Rhapsody (overhated) and Rocketman (overpraised), this biopic has nothing new to say about the form or its subject. 

9. Everything Everywhere All at Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Here we go: the most critically acclaimed film of the year, the most nominated film at this year’s Oscars, and the most beloved movie on the film literate side of the internet. It is not for me. As I said in my piece on nominations morning, I am pleased for anyone who finds joy in this film’s success, particularly those people who see themselves in this story of immigrant parents and familial reconciliation. This is a film that makes people feel seen, and that is a wonderful thing. I just don’t think it’s a very successful movie.

Why not? There is no in-world logic to the story, which makes its universe-hopping seem haphazard and beside the point. The emotional beats are overplayed and underbaked – we’re going to save the universe with the power of a hug! – and don’t hold up under scrutiny. The wild mix of tones also means that even if the emotional beats had been better executed, they still wouldn’t land because you can’t go from a slow-motion sex toy gag to a poignant mother-daughter moment and expect us to care. The editing will probably win the Oscar, and there sure is a lot of it, but it’s mostly just exhausting.

Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are wonderful performers, doing the most with what they are given, and if there is any real emotion in the film, it is because of them. But even they cannot rescue this nuance-free slog of a film that feels much longer than its ridiculous 2-hour, 20-minute runtime. If this movie wins Best Picture – and it is the frontrunner right now – good for everyone involved, but it would be the winner I like the least since at least the one-two punch of Chicago and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

8. Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski

This movie is a lot of fun. In a manner of speaking, it saved movie theaters by not only becoming a surprise hit but by becoming one of the highest-grossing films in the history of cinema. Tom Cruise, personal life aside, re-established himself as one of the 10 biggest stars in the last 50 years of film. Each action sequence is beautifully choreographed and executed by Kosinski and his team. There are even some quality character moments and callbacks to the original film.

All of that said, this is a silly Best Picture nominee. This is an enjoyable action picture that is being given a lot of credit for “blowing stuff up real good,” as Roger Ebert once put it. Everything you need to know about this movie is in the scene when Tom Cruise goes rogue to prove the impossible mission (see what I did there?) is in fact possible. The pilots he is meant to be training sit back and watch him perform cool stunts on a screen. They are us. When they cheer, we are meant to cheer. When they are on the edge of their seats, we are meant to be on the edge of ours. It all works perfectly well as a microcosm of the Top Gun: Maverick experience. It happened. It was fun. Then the feeling fades, like a vapor trail, into nothing.

7. Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron

On any given day, I could probably swap this with Top Gun: Maverick on this list. Seven-eight. Eight-seven. They are not that far apart in terms of intent, though maybe a little further apart in terms of execution. But, that’s not really fair to Joseph Kosinski to compare what he can do behind a camera to what Cameron can do. Overall, Avatar: The Way of Water is probably equally if not more silly than Maverick, but there is a throwback nature to Cameron’s film that makes the silliness feel of a piece with the experience rather than an embarrassing side element.

In roughly 125 years of film history, Pandora is probably the most fully realized fictional universe ever. Cameron’s dedication to making these movies is so single-minded and maniacal that you are almost required to sit back and applaud the mere fact that he did it. The crazy sonuvabitch did it. There are sequences in this film that you have never seen before from both a technical achievement level and an aesthetic beauty level. The storytelling, well, that has never been Cameron’s strong suit. But when everything else is this impressive, it’s almost beside the point. Good for him, and bring on Avatar 3.

6. The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg

This is the 13th film Spielberg has directed to garner a Best Picture nomination, tied for the most ever with William Wyler. There are so many that even Spielberg’s Best Picture nominees could be broken down into tiers of quality. Two or three are in the running for Greatest American Films Ever Made (Jaws, Schindler’s List, and depending on your proclivities, ET: The Extra-terrestrial). The next level down are the stone-cold classics like Saving Private Ryan and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then, you have the hall of the merely very good, including Lincoln, The Post, and War Horse. The Color Purple is on its own in the bottom tier and probably best ignored.

So, where does The Fabelmans rank? For my money, it is merely very good, which is not intended as a knock on the film. Spielberg’s “very good” is better than a lot of directors’ best. The filmmaker does hold the audience’s hand a little too much through the movie, and Michelle Williams’ character has the more interesting story compared to the one we actually follow of little Sammy Fabelman and his love of cinema. It is to Spielberg’s credit that he is willing to go to some of the darker, thornier places that this movie goes, but the story lacks the thematic weight of his best films.

5. All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger

I said most of what I need to say about this and the next four movies on the list in my Top 10 Films of 2022 feature, so I will keep these brief. Berger’s war picture, which takes more than a little inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, is a stunning achievement on virtually every level. It remains exciting that the Academy continues to embrace foreign-language films in the top categories as this is the fifth consecutive year a film not primarily in English has been nominated for the top prize. All Quiet on the Western Front is a wonderfully deserving link in that chain.

4. Triangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben Östlund

Östlund doesn’t miss. The two Palmes d’Or on his mantle should be proof enough of that. There is a meme that goes around the internet every now and then asking what the best three-film run of all time might be. Impossible to answer with any certainty, but it’s a fun thought exercise. Maybe Östlund’s would not be the first name to come to mind, but his current run of Force Majeure, The Square, and Triangle of Sadness belongs in the conversation. With each successive film, the director’s blade only gets sharper, and I can’t wait to see what target he points it at next.

3. TÁR, directed by Todd Field

I am going to have to write about Field and this film a few more times this Oscars season, and that makes me very happy, but it also makes me a little wary of repeating myself. How to sing the praises of a missing master over and over without sounding a little obsessive? The truth is I probably am a tad obsessed with figuring out how Field is able to do the things he does with a camera, with an actor, with the words on a page. It boggles the mind, and sometimes, I just sit back and try to appreciate the fact that we got another movie from the guy.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh

There will be a lot to say about Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, and Brendan Gleeson when their categories come up during this series, but this has to be one of the greatest ensemble performances of this century – perhaps matched only by the next film on this list. If asked to describe what makes a great performance, I would point to the way each of these actors navigates the nuances and subtleties of McDonagh’s prose, translating the beautiful text into real, lived-in characters. It is one of the hardest things in film, and these performers make it look effortless.

1. Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley

This was my No. 1 film of the year, so yes, of course it tops this list, too. Four times my favorite film of the year went on to win Best Picture, most recently Parasite in 2019. This is unlikely to be the fifth in that club, but that’s okay. The nomination is fine recognition of Polley’s incomparable achievement, though one wishes it had more general support for its perfect cast, gorgeous cinematography, haunting score, and of course its director. At the end of the day, we are lucky to have this film, and for that, we owe Polley more than any award could represent.

Countdown to the Oscars: Everything Everywhere All at Once leads with 11 nominations, Banshees and All Quiet right behind

As expected, Everything Everywhere All at Once led the way Tuesday morning with 11 Academy Award nominations, two ahead of The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front. That puts the Daniels’ (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) critical and commercial hit in the driver’s seat for Best Picture at this midway stage of the Oscars race.

Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams were up early to present the nominees, and the universe-hopping sci-fi dramedy from Scheinert and Kwan showed immediate strength, pulling in surprise notices for Costume Design, Original Score, and Original Song. It also nabbed two of the slots in Best Supporting Actress, with Jamie Lee Curtis getting her expected nomination and Stephanie Hsu making good on the buzz around her. Michelle Yeoh is firmly in the running for Best Actress, and Ke Huy Quan remains the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor. The Daniels were also nominated for Director and Original Screenplay, while the film also picked up an all-important Editing nomination.

Joining Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and All Quiet on the Western Front in the 10-film strong Best Picture lineup are Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, The Fabelmans, TÁR, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking. Along with The Daniels, the Best Director lineup consists of Martin McDonagh for Banshees, Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans, Todd Field for TÁR, and Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness. Östlund was a surprise and a welcome one, probably bumping out one of James Cameron (Avatar), Baz Luhrman (Elvis), or Edward Berger (All Quiet).

Berger’s popular German-language adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which just recently dominated the BAFTA nominations, was a monster in the craft categories, making his missing out in Director a little more curious. Overall, All Quiet was recognized for Cinematography, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Original Score, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature, where it is the likely frontrunner. In addition to Director, the missing Editing nomination also suggests weakness for All Quiet, as that category is usually a bellwether of Best Picture strength.

This does not always hold true – and as recently as last year, this was not the case – but often a strong Best Picture nominee will have nominations for Picture (of course), Director, Screenplay (either Adapted or Original), and Editing. The only three films to be cited in all four of those categories this year are Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and TÁR, meaning those are the films most likely to be battling it out for the top prize.

In addition to those four nominations, Banshees also picked up four acting nominations – Colin Farrell for Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon for Supporting Actress – and an Original Score nomination for my favorite working composer, Carter Burwell. Meanwhile, Field’s TAR picked up the expected Cate Blanchett nod for Best Actress and an inspired nomination for Florian Hoffmeister’s stunning cinematography.

Along with Farrell, Austin Butler (Elvis) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale) will battle it out as the three lockstep favorites for Best Actor, making this one of the more exciting acting races in years. Some of that excitement is likely to dissipate once we learn who wins the BAFTA and the SAG awards, so for now, let’s enjoy the mystery. Bill Nighy also made it into the lineup for the Akira Kurosawa remake Living, and Paul Mescal earned probably the biggest surprise nomination of the morning for his tremendous work in the critically beloved Aftersun.

Blanchett will have to fend off a strong surge from Yeoh in Best Actress, which also features Ana de Armas (Blonde), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), whose late buzz caused quite a stir online but proved to be fruitful. This came at the expense of Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and Viola Davis (The Woman King), making this the second straight year and 83rd time in 95 years that no black performers are nominated for Best Actress. That said, Yeoh is the first East Asian actress ever nominated in this category, so we can rejoice in the breaking of that glass ceiling at least.

In Supporting Actress, Curtis, Hsu, and Condon are joined by frontrunner Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Hong Chau (The Whale). The surprise omission is that of Triangle of Sadness star Dolly de Leon, whose absence is made all the more shocking by that film’s apparent strength with voters.

Over in Supporting Actor, Judd Hirsh (The Fabelmans) and Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway) round out a lineup headed by Quan, Gleeson, and Keoghan. Hirsch probably took the Fabelmans spot from Paul Dano, while Tyree Henry earned the nod in a competitive race for the fifth slot, beating out Dano and Eddie Redmayne (The Good Nurse).

Just behind Everything Everywhere, Banshees, and All Quiet in the nominations haul were Elvis with eight and The Fabelmans with seven. As for the other Best Picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick and TÁR each showed up strong with six, while Avatar: The Way of Water earned four, Triangle of Sadness three, and Women Talking two, with Sarah Polley receiving the film’s lone other nomination for Adapted Screenplay.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever likely just missed out on a Best Picture nomination, earning five nods overall, the most for any non-Picture nominee. In addition to Bassett, the superhero blockbuster was recognized for Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects, and Original Song for “Lift Me Up,” a collaboration among Rihanna, Tems, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Goransson. This gives Coogler one of the more fascinating Oscar resumés for a director – he is a Best Picture nominee for producing a film he did not direct (Judas and the Black Messiah) and now an Original Song nominee. 

Also strong below the line were Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which each earned three crafts nods. Meanwhile, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale also earned three nominations, being cited for its Makeup and Hairstyling, in addition to the two acting nominations.

So, how am I feeling? 

The good: Five of my top 10 films of the year are nominated for Best Picture, while three more were recognized in other categories (EO in International Feature, Bardo in Cinematography, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in Documentary). I am overjoyed at the nominations for Field, Östlund, and Mescal, as well as all the love for The Banshees of Inisherin.

The disappointing: I think I am going to have to resign myself to this being the year of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Everyone – critics, Academy voters, audiences, all the people I work with – loves this film. It truly did not work for me, and it will be difficult to spend this Oscar season watching it collect plaudit after plaudit. But, sometimes that happens. I am pleased for everyone who finds joy in this film’s success.

Beyond that, it is an oversight, plain and simple, that voters could not find one space for any of the remarkable performers in the Women Talking ensemble. Most likely, because all of the performances were so strong and there was not a single one for voters to rally behind, they all split the vote and missed out. But, that’s no excuse. Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, in particular, will be coming for their makeup Oscars one of these days.

In addition to Polley missing in Best Director, there were no nominations at all for Till, The Woman King, or She Said, all strong films directed by talented women. And, though Mescal snuck into Best Actor, it is a bummer that Charlotte Welles got no recognition for her Aftersun screenplay, which tells her story so beautifully and truthfully.

What else? The producers of the Academy Awards had better be figuring out how to get “Naatu Naatu,” the nominated original song from RRR, on the broadcast because I promise it will be the highlight of the night. I am excited to catch up on some of the nominated documentaries and international features I missed this year, specifically Lucas Dhont’s Close and Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes. 

A final note, in my pre-nominations piece yesterday, I requested the Academy spread the wealth. That didn’t happen. As mentioned, there were 41 feature nominees in 2021. This year, there are 40. That is not sustainable for the future of these awards. We need more films recognized, not fewer.

That said, this year’s broadcast is likely to be buoyed by the fact that two of the most successful and popular films of all time are nominated for Best Picture (Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick). It will also be helped if producers can entice the nominated Rihanna and Lady Gaga to perform their respective songs. And, honestly, there will probably be some rubberneckers tuning in to find out what might happen after last year’s Will Smith fiasco.

As always, we will dive into all of this in greater depth in the coming weeks, so check back in this space for more Countdown to the Oscars coverage, as well as the rest of my Year in Review series and hopefully some new film reviews and other stuff soon.