Horrorthon, my favorite time of year, starts tomorrow! However, before we get lost in the scary season, I want to take one last look at awards season! It’s time for me to update my Oscar nominations. Fortunately, thanks to all of the recent festival premieres, the Oscar picture is finally starting to look a little bit clearer. There’s still a lot of question marks out there and, as always, anything can happen. But, finally, I can say that there’s more to my predictions that just lucky guesses and wishful thinking.
Below, you’ll find my predictions for September! In order to see how my thinking has evolved over the course of the year, be sure to check out my predictions for February, March, April, May, June, July, and August.
Best Picture
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
The Menu
TAR
Till
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking
A few thoughts on the (potential) nominees:
Babylon, I will admit, I’m including because of the trailer and the fact that it’s a Damien Chazelle film about Hollywood. The Academy likes films about itself and one can argue that after what happened when La La Land was nominated, Chazelle is owed at least a little bit of recognition. Then again, that same argument could have been made for First Man and we know how that turned out.
As for The Menu, I’ve got that in my surprise nominee slot. There’s almost always at least one potential nominee that’s considered to be a long shot until the nominations are announced. Now that we have a set number of ten nominees, the chances that one nominee will be a surprise seems even more certain than before.
Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, and Everything Everywhere All At Once all came out early in the year but they’ve all achieved the box office success necessary to be remembered.
Till seems like the type of film that the Academy will want to acknowledge, especially with the presidential election right around the corner.
The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, TAR, and Women Talking were all acclaimed when they made their festival debuts. Banshees, in particular, went from being a probable also-ran to a surefire contender based on the length of the standing ovation that it received.
Best Director
Chinonye Chukwu for Till
Todd Field for TAR
Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Insherin
Sarah Polley for Women Talking
Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans
Best Actor
Austin Butler in Elvis
Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Insherin
Ralph Fiennes in The Menu
Brendan Fraser in The Whale
Best Actress
Naomi Ackie in I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Cate Blanchett in TAR
Olivia Colman in Empire of Light
Danielle Deadwyler in Till
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Insherin
Tom Hanks in Elvis
Woody Harrelson in Triangle of Sadness
Judd Hirsch in The Fabelmans
Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley in Women Talking
Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Sally Field in Spoiler Alert
Frances McDormand in Women Talking
Janelle Monae in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Through the Shattered Lens 