Predicting the annual Oscar race is more about psychology than artistic merit. The Best Picture winner is rarely the actual best film released in a given year. Guessing which people and movies will take home trophies is a matter of understanding how and why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences members will vote the way they do. This is a skill I have yet to master.

In a typical year, I average about 50-60% correct predictions. I’ll be honest, in many of the technical and obscure categories, I usually wind up guessing blindly. When I’ve never even heard of any of the Live-Action Short nominees, how am I ever supposed to know which will win? In the major categories, I often overthink the logic behind my choices.

This year, for example, even though indie phenom Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to be the front-runner with the most nominations and most other award shows wins, as well as the most good will behind it, I still think (note that I’m writing this intro in advance) it will prove too weird for the famously stodgy Academy voting body, who will rally behind Steven Spielberg’s navel-gazing The Fabelmans instead. A multiple Oscar-winning filmmaker reminiscing about his youth falling in love with movies feels to me like a perfectly calibrated piece of Oscar bait that the many older members won’t be able to resist.

On the other hand, the Academy has made concerted efforts to expand and diversify its membership in recent years. Perhaps that will help push the multiverse-hopping fantasy over the top?

This post will publish soon after the ceremony ends. How did I do? Let’s find out!

Best Picture

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Elvis
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Fabelmans
• Tár
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Triangle of Sadness
• Women Talking

Josh’s Prediction: The Fabelmans

Actual Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Director

• Todd Field – Tár
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively “The Daniels”) – Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin
• Ruben Östlund – Triangle of Sadness
• Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans

Josh’s Prediction: The Daniels

Actual Winner: The Daniels

Best Actor

• Austin Butler – Elvis
• Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin
• Brendan Fraser – The Whale
• Paul Mescal – Aftersun
• Bill Nighy – Living

Josh’s Prediction: Brendan Fraser

Actual Winner: Brendan Fraser

Best Actress

• Cate Blanchett – Tár
• Ana de Armas – Blonde
• Andrea Riseborough – To Leslie
• Michelle Williams – The Fabelmans
• Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All at Once

Josh’s Prediction: Michelle Yeoh

Actual Winner: Michelle Yeoh

Best Supporting Actor

• Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees of Inisherin
• Brian Tyree Henry – Causeway
• Judd Hirsch – The Fabelmans
• Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin
• Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All at Once

Josh’s Prediction: Ke Huy Quan

Actual Winner: Ke Huy Quan

Best Supporting Actress

• Angela Bassett – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Hong Chau – The Whale
• Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin
• Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Stephanie Hsu – Everything Everywhere All at Once

Josh’s Prediction: Jamie Lee Curtis

Actual Winner: Jamie Lee Curtis

Animated Feature Film

• Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• The Sea Beast
• Turning Red

Josh’s Prediction: Guillermo del Toto’s Pinocchio

Actual Winner: Guillermo del Toto’s Pinocchio

Original Screenplay

• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Fabelmans
• Tár
• Triangle of Sadness

Josh’s Prediction: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Actual Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Adapted Screenplay

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
• Living
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Women Talking

Josh’s Prediction: Glass Onion

Actual Winner: Women Talking

International Feature

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Argentina, 1985
• Close
• EO
• The Quiet Girl

Josh’s Prediction: All Quiet on the Western Front

Actual Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front

Documentary Feature

• All That Breathes
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Fire of Love
• A House Made of Splinters
• Navalny

Josh’s Prediction: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Actual Winner: Navalny

Original Score

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Babylon
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Fabelmans

Josh’s Prediction: The Fabelmans

Actual Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front

Original Song

• “Applause” (Tell It Like a Woman)
• “Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick)
• “Lift Me Up” (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
• “Naatu Naatu” (RRR)
• “This Is a Life” (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Josh’s Prediction: “Lift Me Up”

Actual Winner: “Naatu Naatu”

Cinematography

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
• Elvis
• Empire of Light
• Tár

Josh’s Prediction: Empire of Light

Actual Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front

Costume Design

• Babylon
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Elvis
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Josh’s Prediction: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Actual Winner: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Editing

• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Elvis
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Tár
• Top Gun: Maverick

Josh’s Prediction: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Actual Winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Makeup and Hairstyling

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• The Batman
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Elvis
• The Whale

Josh’s Prediction: The Whale

Actual Winner: The Whale

Production Design

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Babylon
• Elvis
• The Fabelmans

Josh’s Prediction: Elvis

Actual Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front

Sound

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Batman
• Elvis
• Top Gun: Maverick

Josh’s Prediction: All Quiet on the Western Front

Actual Winner: Top Gun: Maverick

Visual Effects

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Batman
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Top Gun: Maverick

Josh’s Prediction: Avatar: The Way of Water

Actual Winner: Avatar: The Way of Water

Animated Short

• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
• The Flying Sailor
• Ice Merchants
• My Year of Dicks
• An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It

Josh’s Prediction: My Year of Dicks

Actual Winner: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Live-Action Short

• An Irish Goodbye
• Ivalu
• Le Pupille
• Night Ride
• The Red Suitcase

Josh’s Prediction: The Red Suitcase

Actual Winner: An Irish Goodbye

Documentary Short

• The Elephant Whisperers
• Haulout
• How Do You Measure a Year?
• The Martha Mitchell Effect
• Stranger at the Gate

Josh’s Prediction: The Martha Mitchell Effect

Actual Winner: The Elephant Whisperers

Thoughts and Observations (Typed as the Ceremony Airs)

Jimmy Kimmel is back to host. His opening monologue is… fine. Nice digs at Babylon, James Cameron, and the Academy’s lack of Best Director nominations for any women. Lots of jokes about last year’s infamous slap, of course.

All 23 categories are going to be presented live again after the industry people objected to technical categories being delivered in a separate ceremony last year. God, this thing’s going to be on all fucking night, isn’t it?

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough on this blog, I really disliked Guillermo del Toto’s Pinocchio.

The live performances of all the Best Song nominees are always my least favorite part of this show, and the first one (a horrid Diane Warren number) is truly excruciating. Even the David Byrne song is godawful.

Fucking hell, they’re making a presentation of the trailer for Disney’s live-action Little Mermaid remake part of the show? It looks awwwwwwful.

Pointless Time-Wasting Montage Alert: Warner Bros. pays for time to celebrate its 100th anniversary, by highlighting clips from movies it currently owns but were actually made by other studios (such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, produced by MGM in 1968 and only acquired by Warner Bros. in the 1980s when WB purchased most of MGM’s back catalog).

I’ll give you that the production number for the song from RRR was reasonably entertaining (more so than the other ones, at least), but it also feels more Lord of the Dance than Bollywood. In either case, it’s not my thing, personally.

Pointless Time-Wasting Self-Promotion Alert: The Academy offers an extended commercial for its new museum.

When presented with the list of Animated Short Film nominees, how could anyone choose to not vote for the one called My Year of Dicks?

What the hell nonsense is Lady Gaga babbling about her dumb Top Gun song being deeply personal and meaningful? What a load of pretentious twaddle.

Notable Upset: John Williams is denied what was supposed to be his final Oscar. All Quiet on the Western Front is really mopping up a lot of categories.

Did Mindy Kaling change out of the white dress she wore on the red carpet into an otherwise identical but black dress before stepping on stage to present the Best Score award? Weird.

Even after the Golden Globes turned out to be a Covid super-spreader event, Jessica Chastain is the sole person in the Oscar audience with sense enough to wear a damn mask. Good for her. (Of course, she took it off when Kimmel talked to her on camera, and again when on stage.)

Rihanna’s Black Panther song is pretty boring, but that’s never prevented anything from winning Best Song before. (It did this year, apparently.)

John Travolta got choked-up introducing the In Memoriam reel. He lost two major co-stars in 2022 (Olivia Newton-John and Kirstie Alley, of course).

At 11:10 PM, I believe all the smaller and technical categories are done and only the four big ones remain. The show is making surprisingly good time this year. Of course, this is often the time that the ceremony gets bogged down in montages and dumb presentations. Can it resist that this year?

11:12 PM: The Daniels just won Best Director. I called that, but I’m not feeling so great about my theory that Best Picture will go to The Fabelmans, which hasn’t won a damn thing all night.

Looks like The Banshees of Inisherin, my favorite of the year’s nominees, is going home empty-handed. That’s disappointing, if not unexpected.

I liked Everything Everywhere, but didn’t love it.

11:33 PM: Yeah, I blew it on the Best Picture Prediction. Oh well.

Josh’s Final Score: 12/23

That’s 52% correct, on the lower end of my usual standards. Mrs. Z, who takes this more seriously than I do and actually tries to research her predictions, did better with 16 correct (69%).

The show is over by 11:40 PM ET, which may seem late but is actually pretty good for the Oscar ceremony (which often runs over four hours). I have to admit that it actually moved along pretty briskly for most of that length.

That’s it for this year. No shocking scandals or mishaps this time around, but you never know what next year will bring.