Armon Owlia’s Annual Predictions of the 95th Academy Awards
On January 24, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the nominees for the 95th Academy Awards. This year, which now marks the tenth anniversary of my first predictions, I hope to achieve a perfect score after going 9 for 11 last year, after some predictable losses in the Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay categories, one of which I knew I wasn’t going to get right, but held out hope for anyway, and then the other I should’ve seen coming. So, here we go. Hopefully these predictions slap harder than Jada’s husband…
Just note that this year, a lot of performances that I felt SHOULD have won will most likely not. These are merely predictions based on how awards season has gone thus far, and I will be noting which performances I would have personally chosen to give the Oscar to if there are any discrepancies, although on some, I will go based on what is the best one of the bunch; but I'll go into it category by category. The key for my predictions can be seen below:
Key:
GG: Golden Globe Winner That Year (January 10)
DGA: Directors Guild of America Award Winner That Year (February 18)
BW: BAFTA Winner That Year (February 19)
SAG: Screen Actors Guild Award Winner That Year (February 26)
WGAA: Writers Guild of America Award Winner That Year (March 5)
OP: My Prediction
OW: The Winner (March 12)
Best Actor In A Supporting Role
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway)
Judd Hirsch (The Fablemans)
Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin) BW
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) GG SAG OP OW
This is probably the easiest category to predict, simply because Ke Huy Quan not only had all the momentum going in, but it’s also the best performance of the lot. The action, the honesty, the range of emotion…it’s probably the one performance I can pinpoint here that was not only truly multidimensional, but showed me something I hadn’t seen before in a nominee.
Best Actress In A Supporting Role
Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) GG
Hong Chau (The Whale)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) BW
Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) SAG OP OW
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Now, I know. Why would I choose against Angela Bassett and go with Jamie Lee Curtis? Simple. Comic book movies, when it comes to acting, rarely get Oscar wins, unless you’re playing the Joker. And that momentum that came from the Globes was slowly lost as we got closer and closer to the Oscars. If Bassett wins, good for her, but we also know that Jamie Lee Curtis really does deserve an Oscar, first and foremost, and second, there’s a very strong chance she will never be nominated again. From Scream Queen to Scream With Delight.
Best Original Song
”Applause” (Tell It Like A Woman)
”Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick)
”Lift Me Up” (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
”Naatu Naatu” (RRR) GG OP OW
”This Is a Life” (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Kind of hesitant considering they’re up against artists such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga, but, it’s probably going to look that way.
Best Adapted Screenplay
All Quiet on the Western Front BW
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking WGAA OP OW
The last time I bet against the Writer’s Guild, I was made sorry. Not going to make that same mistake again.
Best Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin GG BW
Everything Everywhere All at Once WGAA OP OW
The Fabelmans
Tár
Triangle of Sadness
As you can see, one film will rise above the rest of the pack…and as you’ll see later down the card, the Writer’s Guild also agrees with me.
Best Animated Feature
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio GG BW OP OW
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red
As far as this category goes, this may be one of the strongest two-film races I’ve ever had to predict. Ordinarily, I would give it to the Disney/Pixar film, even if I felt it wasn’t the strongest. However, “Turning Red” was not only that strong, I would argue that if it was any other year, it would probably win. However, when you have an Oscar-winning director take control of a dark retelling of a classic fairytale, especially when he has a distinctly visual style that works beautifully in the field of stop-motion animation and maybe even expands the craft even more, you get magic. Lightning in a bottle. So, it should shock no one that I’m going to go the anti-Disney route. And, unlike last year, I may be right. But yes, I do stand by what I said about “The Mitchells” last year, and it was still a million times better than “Encanto.”
Best International Feature Film
All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany) BW OP OW
Argentina, 1985 (Argentina) GG
Close (Belgium)
EO (Poland)
The Quiet Girl (Ireland)
When a film in this category is also nominated for Best Picture, you already know how this will end.
Best Director
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) DGA OP OW
Todd Field (Tár)
Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness)
Steven Spielberg (The Fablemans) GG
Best Director and Best Picture often go hand-in-hand. Secretly, or not-so, depending on who you ask, I want Spielberg to win for “The Fablemans,” considering this is probably his last hurrah on the Oscars stage and “Fablemans” being the most personal film he’s done since “Schindler’s List.” But, gotta go with the Daniels on this one.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett (Tár) GG BW
Ana de Armas (Blonde)
Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie)
Michelle Williams (The Fablemans)
Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once) GG SAG OP OW
Of all the categories this year, this one was the most difficult, without a doubt. Now, not to disrespect Ana de Armas, Andrea Riseborough, or Michelle Williams, as I have seen all three of these films and can say this for certain: none of the three could hold a candle to the performances by Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh. However, which one to pick?
Do we go with Cate Blanchett’s haunting portrayal of a no-compromises conductor who becomes a victim of cancel culture and allows her demons to catch up with her…or do we go with Michelle Yeoh not only showing her martial arts roots but world-class acting and complexity that she has not shown before in any of her characters? Do we go with a performance that we were expecting to be good or something that took us all by surprise?
Blanchett’s performance was like watching Artur Rubinstein do the 3rd Movement of the Moonlight Sonata. She never hit a wrong key or a wrong note. Her portrayal was so powerful, and she was so good at what she did that I nearly walked out on the movie because it was just TOO good. “Tár” won’t win Best Picture, let’s make it clear, because Cate Blanchett carried that movie. However, that’s something we all tend to expect from an actor who is well on her way and on track to break Katharine Hepburn’s record of four Oscar wins.
Who could have predicted the strength and performance of one Michelle Yeoh? She, ordinarily plays the kick-ass, bad-ass clear-conscience hero who can hold her own with her male counterparts. She also carries a level of grace, nobility, elegance, and intelligence that has become her fingerprint. When she speaks or moves, the world stops to listen. When her performance begins in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” most of that is gone. We see it grow and evolve. She played against type and showed her range. “Crazy Rich Asians” was her breaking of the mask she’s worn for decades. This was a deeper exploration and, in my mind, the best performance of her career. So, tough call, but I’m giving this one to Yeoh. We see a glimpse of the old, but also, much like the character of Evelyn, deeply explore new boundaries and new rules. She’s been recognized as one of the greatest actors in the world. And now, she gets to carry gold that cements her legacy.
Best Actor
Austin Butler (Elvis) GG BW
Colin Farell (The Banshees of Inisherin) GG
Brendan Fraser (The Whale) SAG OP OW
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)
Bill Nighy (Living)
I like Austin Butler, truly, I do. However, the Brenaissance is real. He did such a great job, and I know people fat-shaming the movie never read the original source material by Samuel D. Hunter. If they did, they would understand there isn’t really fat-shaming so much as his obesity being the result of such tremendous trauma. Fraser really delivers on this and then some, which definitely is aided by the amount of trauma he incurred off-screen, and for that, he’s my pick to win.
Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front BW
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin GG
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once SAG OP OW
The Fabelmans GG
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
Nothing is necessary here. This film has destroyed every preconceived notion, opened cultural doors, re-written the rules of storytelling, both linear and non-linear. This is a movie that will still be talked about fifty years from now, long after most of these films will not be talked about. It’s a classic in the making, and for that, I know it will make history as the first action movie to win Best Picture…but maybe not make it a possibility in the multiverse.
