On January 24, 2023, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced the nominees for the 95th Academy Awards (2023 Oscars). Now that the dust has settled and the nominations have concluded, the campaigning has only just begun for this group of nominees. With the ceremony in March, many of the nominated films will make final pushes to sway voters in their respective categories.
Who will win the coveted prize of Best Picture? With movies from industry giants like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg to genre-bending adventures like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Best Picture features an excellent batch of films from a diverse group of filmmakers. Listed below are the Best Picture nominees with information on where to watch each of the films.
The horrors of World War I comes to life in Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Told from the perspective of the Germans, a young soldier named Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) and his friends enlist in the German army in 1917, three years into WWI. Their patriotism and excitement quickly disappear when the boys experience trench warfare firsthand.
The film is based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name. This is the second feature film adaptation of the novel. The 1930 film adaptation was critically acclaimed and won Outstanding Production, which was renamed to Best Picture years later, at the Oscars. All Quiet on the Western Front received 9 Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay for director Edward Berger.
After a 13-year wait, audiences returned to Pandora for Avatar: The Way of the Water. Set more than a decade after the events of Avatar, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is now fully Na’vi as the chief of the Omatikaya clan. Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have three biological children, one adopted daughter, and a human teenager who they look after.
The RDA has once again returned to Pandora to colonize the planet. To make matters worse, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) was revived as a recombinant and sets out to kill Jake and his family. James Cameron’s sequel is more visually impressive and emotionally gripping than the first film. Cameron’s sequel epic sequel garnered 4 Oscar nominations, including Best Visual Effects. As of January 24, Avatar: The Way of Water is only in theaters.
What happens when a man wakes up one day and decided to end a lifelong friendship? This premise plays out with hilarious, sad, and shocking results in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. On a remote island off the coast of Ireland, Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) decides to cut off his friendship with Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell). Colm believes Pádraic is “dull” and wants to spend the rest of his life composing music instead.
Offended and hurt, Pádraic tries to win Colm back with the help of his sister, Siobhán (Kerry Condon), and a local boy, Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan). Angered by Pádraic’s persistence, Colm presents Pádraic with an ultimatum that leads to devastating (and bloody) consequences. Banshees is one of the best-acted films of the year thanks to strong performances from the four leads, who all individually received Academy Award nominations. In total, Banshees received 9 Oscar nominations, with McDonagh breaking into the directing and original screenplay categories.
The “King of Rock and Roll” received the biopic treatment in Elvis. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, Austin Butler stars as Elvis Presley, an up-and-coming singer who rose to superstardom thanks to his deep voice, sexual appeal, and unorthodox dance moves. The film is told through the eyes of Elvis’s longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), the former carnival peddler who helped turn Elvis into the biggest solo act in America.
The enthralling concert scenes are fascinating, especially the If I Can Dream performance. Butler’s transformation as Elvis is seamless, and his performance garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Additionally, Elvis collected 8 Oscar nominations, including Best Costume and Production Design.
The most unique film of the Best Picture nominees is Everything Everywhere All at Once. Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Quan Wang, the owner of a family-run laundromat. An overworked Evelyn struggles to find joy in her marriage to Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and clashes with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) over her non-Chinese girlfriend. To add insult to injury, the laundromat is being audited by the IRS.
During a meeting with the IRS, an interdimensional rupture thrusts Evelyn into the spotlight as she must fight to save the multiverse. EEAAO perfectly balances intense action sequences with a heartwarming message about love and family. Everything Everywhere All at Once led the field with 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Yeoh and Best Director for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
Whenever Steven Spielberg makes a movie, it’s appointment viewing. The legendary director got very personal with his latest film, The Fabelmans. Loosely based on Spielberg’s own life, The Fabelmans follows Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), a teenage boy who dreams of becoming a filmmaker after watching The Greatest Show on Earth. Sammy is encouraged by his mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams) to make films, while his father Burt (Paul Dano) takes a more practical approach to his son’s life.
As Sammy’s family life becomes more dysfunctional, he uses films to explain and accept the reality of his situation. The Fabelmans garnered 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Spielberg, who will be looking to win his third award (after Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan) in the category.
For his first directed feature film since 2006, Todd Field chronicled the saga of the fictional composer and conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) in Tár. The first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic will soon record a symphony that will take her career to new heights.
To put it in 2022 terms, “cancel culture” comes after Lydia as she scrambles to save her reputation. Tár made many critics’ “best of” lists in 2022, and Blanchett winning Best Actress is a lock at this point. In total, Tár collected 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Blanchett and Best Director for Field.
Tom Cruise became a full-blown star as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in 1986’s Top Gun. 26 years later, Cruise put on his naval jacket, hopped on his Kawasaki, and returned to Miramar for Top Gun: Maverick. In the sequel, Maverick is on the brink of being discharged as a test pilot before his friend, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), steps in and offers him a chance to save his job.
Iceman sends Maverick to San Diego to train a recent class of Top Gun graduates in a top-secret mission with potentially catastrophic consequences. Maverick is surprised to learn that the son of his late partner Goose (Anthony Edwards), Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), is one of the graduates, and the two butt heads immediately. Maverick was a huge hit at the box office, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2022. The film received 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ruben Östlund is a master of satire with hits like Force Majeure and The Square. Östlund now enters the Best Picture race with Triangle of Sadness, a black satirical comedy about social hierarchy. A celebrity couple (Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean) are invited on a rich, luxurious cruise with a group of wealthy elites.
The cruise ends in catastrophe as the vessel sinks, stranding the survivors on a deserted island. The ensemble also features performances by Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Burić, Amanda Walker, and Woody Harrelson. Triangle of Sadness garnered 3 Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Östlund.
Based on the 2018 novel of the same name and inspired by true events, Women Talking depicts the tragic story of how innocent women are being assaulted in their sleep and against their will by the men in their isolated religious colony. A select group of women within the community meet at night to discuss how to react and what to do about what has happened.
The ensemble cast includes a strong group of actresses, including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Jessie Buckley, and Frances McDormand. Women Talking received 2 Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Sarah Polley.
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