As you no doubt know, the staff here at America Fun Fact of the Day are certified sickos. We also are weirdly obsessed with the Academy Awards. It’s an illness we can’t explain. As a result, our entire staff sat down and watched every single movie nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress, as well as a handful of wildcard nominations.

We don’t necessarily recommend this. We saw about 20 Academy Award nominees, which by a rough estimate means we spent 50 hours watching movies that are trying to be prestigious (also Top Gun and Avatar).

Families were abandoned. Funerals were skipped. Hot Pockets were consumed en masse. But we did all this so that you can hear our arbitrary opinion of each nomination, and our predictions going into Sunday’s ceremony.

So sit back, and probably get ready to be mad at some of our rankings.

AFFotD’s 2023 Oscar Preview – Best Picture

Best Picture

Ten films were nominated this year, ranging from Indie darlings to massive blockbusters. Here’s our breakdown of each film.

All Quiet on the Western Front

What’s it About

A remake (we can argue that definition later) of the 1930 film based on the 1929 novel about German soldiers facing physical and mental trauma during the trench warfare of World War I. It’s strikingly filmed, poignantly acted, features that dude who did Captain America: Civil War AND Inglorious Basterds, and is an A+++ Dad Movie.

The story follows a young German eager to join the war efforts with patriotic fervor, only to find himself disillusioned by the brutalities of war. It’s a pretty timeless narrative, and is displayed with equal measure nuance and force.

The downside? It’s in German. SUBTITLES? NOT IN OUR AMERICA!

That said, if you “know” how to “read” and you have Netflix, it’s on there, so it’s one of the easiest movies to watch. It’s a beautiful bummer of a movie, and we mean that as a compliment. It also received 9 nominations, including Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography, and Adapted Screenplay.

Should it Win?

We had it ranked 4th out of all the nominations, so we’ll say no, though we did enjoy it.

Will it Win? 

Not likely. It might pull off Cinematography, and it’s a lock for Best Foreign Film, the latter of which will likely lead to a lot of voters to not vote for it for Best Picture.

Avatar: The Way of Water

What’s it About

Whales and Imperialism.

We were tempted to leave it at that, but we’ll actually go into bigger detail. Like Avatar, it’s the biggest box office hit in a decade, it’s gorgeous to see in theaters, relatively under-written, and leaves most people satisfied while some take to it with to an obsessive degree. For those people, it’s basically the blockbuster version of that cat poop parasite that makes you obsessed with cats.

The plot follows Jake Sully years after Avatar. Humans have left the planet, he has a family of four (we think we remember one was like, adopted, we saw it last week and didn’t care enough to research if we remembered right). (There’s also a white kid with dreads who goes “grrrrr” a lot).

The bad guy from the first film (who died) is cloned as an Avatar, and a bunch of marine Avatars go back to the planet of Pandora, leading Sully and his family to go to a new tribe which is in the ocean. This is a James Cameron joint, so it is always a matter of time when the ocean gets involved.

In all, it made billions of dollars, and was nominated for four Oscars. It’s fine?

Should it Win?

No. We had it as the 9th best of the 10 nominated films.

Will it Win? 

Nope. It’ll probably get Visual Effects, but this was nominated for the same reason the first in the series was – so the Academy could say, “Hey, we nominate accessible movies too.”

The Banshees of Inisherin

What’s it About

Toxic positivity?

This is the third in a trilogy of dark comedies by Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh (the first two were plays he wrote before he started directing films). It reunites the cast from In Bruges (which is one of our favorite movies).

Ultimately it follows two former friends in a small town in Ireland in the early 20th century. One friend decides he doesn’t like the other, and wants to stop spending time with him, and goes to drastic measures to try to ensure that happens.

It’s a quiet, surprising, and well acted movie (of it’s nine nominations, four are for acting to go along with their Best Director nomination).

Should it Win?

We put it as the 5th best nominated film, so no.

Will it Win? 

Despite beating the Oscar favorite in the Golden Globes (more on that later), the Hollywood Foreign Press are noticeably weirdos, and it hasn’t won many other major awards, so we’re going with a no here.

Elvis

What’s it About

Guess.

But it’s basically Elvis’ story partially through the lens of Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks in a fat suit and a weird accent) who famously discovered The King, and also famously defrauded him.

It’s different than a typical biopic because Baz Luhrmann is not going to ever do a thing normally, so it’s got a lot of montages and versions of Elvis songs that sound like they’re being sung through an empty toilet paper roll tube.

It received eight nominations (Austin Butler does put in a great performance in the lead, and was rightfully nominated, but we’ll talk about that later) but noticeably did not get a Best Director nomination.

Should it Win?

Oh, hell no. We had this as the worst nominated film of the year.

Will it Win? 

No. The push for this film is around getting Butler a statue, and it’ll probably get something for one of the sound categories. But this is not a serious contender for Best Picture.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

What’s it About

A Chinese immigrant with a lesbian daughter, a disproving father, and a husband who just served her divorce papers goes to the I.R.S. for an audit on her failing laundromat. Obviously, it ends up being about the multiverse.

We. Love. This. Movie. It’s our favorite movie of the year, and it’s not even close. It merges optimism, pessimism, and nihilism. It makes you laugh, cry, go “hahaha the fuck?” and includes multiple fight scenes using dildos. It also had some of the most emotional impactful moments of any movie we’ve seen in a long time. Did we mention the dildo fights?

The most nominated film of the year, and the frontrunner (while it didn’t win Best Comedy in the Golden Globes, it’s won 335 out of 356 of the awards it’s been nominated for this season) it has 11 nominations, including Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan, who you might know as Data from The Goonies, in his first role in 20 years) and Supporting Actress nominations for Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu.

It also has nominations for Director and Screenplay and is the highest grossing film ever in the history of the studio that released it.

Should it Win?

Oh, God yes. If it doesn’t win, we will riot in the streets. It’s inventive, emotive, and the worst thing you could say about it is that it runs maybe 15 minutes too long, but it’s a huge gulf between this and our second favorite nominated film of the year.

Will it Win? 

Cautiously, yes. The Oscars always can fuck things up all Green Book-style, But it has momentum behind it, and a lot of great narratives that make it enticing to vote for…and it’s also the best movie of the year, so that hopefully should help.

The Fabelmans

What’s it About

Steven Spielberg. Mom issues. The magic of cinema.

Basically it’s a semi-autobiographical movie about Spielberg’s emotionally complicated mother, and him using his love of film to learn the craft during his high school years.

It should come off as naval-gazing Oscar bait, but it’s actually an enjoyable watch, with nominations for Michelle Williams (her fifth) and Judd Hirsch (who is incredible, but only on the screen for like six minutes). All told, it has seven nominations to its name, including Screenplay and Director.

We should point out that John Williams did the score, so by default he got a nomination. He’s won it five times, but this is his 53rd (!) nomination. Surprisingly, he’s not won since 1994 for Schindler’s List. Huh.

Should it Win?

We actually put this as our third top film, but again we are ride or die for EEAAO.

Will it Win? 

Sigh, maybe? Of the films to get a surprise win over our favorite movie of the year, this one checks the most boxes to make it possible. A movie about movies? The Academy loves that shit. Steven Spielberg who has been nominated for 13 Oscars without a win (he last won for Director in 1998 for Saving Private Ryan)? You could see some people thinking Everything is “too weird” or whatever and voting this way. So it wouldn’t surprise us, and it is an Oscar-worthy film, but we hope it doesn’t go that way.

Tár

What’s it About

CANCEL CULTURE!

But seriously, it’s a virtuoso composer who takes on a prestigious position to prepare a classic symphony piece, until a viral video of her dressing down a Julliard student and accusations of sexual impropriety lead to her downfall.

Cate Blanchett plays the lead, in arguably her best performance to date, It received six nominations, including Blanchett and a nomination for its Director, Todd Field, six-time nominee best known for his quiet Indie (usually depressing) films like Little Children and In the Bedroom.

Should it Win?

We had it at 8th out of this list, so no.

Will it Win? 

It won’t. The problem for this movie is that people either love it or appreciate the craft behind it, but felt like it lasted four and a half hours. We count ourselves in that latter group. It’s a technically impressive movie with incredible performances, but that mix of love and hate won’t be enough to get it enough votes to win.

Top Gun: Maverick

What’s it About

USA! USA! USA!

The sequel to Top Gun 30 years later, we see Maverick as a test pilot who has failed to rise in the ranks due to his RECKLESSNESS and is tapped to train a group of pilots to lead a mission to eradicate an unauthorized plutonium treatment plant based in [redacted because if they call out a specific country they might lose potential box office money] that is in the continent of [lol no we won’t even tell you that, it’s got snow though?].

It has everything you want from a Top Gun sequel. Tom Gun continuing to dare us to find the portrait in his attic. Shirtless buff dudes (and ladies in sports bras [!]) playing beach sports. “Great Balls of Fire.”

A lot of the narrative around the movie was it being one of the movies that is “saving movie theaters” (since the last Spider-Man about 7 films have been given that credit) and the whole “Tom Cruise is crazy and made everyone fly in actual fighter jets” thing (which we, on the record, think is fucking rad).

It rules. It also was nominated for six Oscars, though the only somewhat major one they have is for Screenplay.

Should it Win?

No, but like, we have this as our 2nd favorite movie of the nominees. Favorite doesn’t mean best, mind you, but this is one of the handful of movies we actively wanted to rewatch as soon as we finished it the first time.

Will it Win? 

No, like Avatar this is a “we nominate popular movies too, you guys” move by the Academy, though it’ll probably come away with Best Sound or maybe Best Original Song for Lady Gaga.

Triangle of Sadness

What’s it About

Okay, so we are going to spoil the shit out of this movie, so we’ll start off by saying it has three nominations, but they’re big ones. Other than Picture, it’s got Best Screenplay and Director nominations. We went in assuming it was a dark comedy about financial inequity (which is relatively accurate) with a Scandinavian sensibility (also accurate) but would mostly be a talking movie without a lot of music.

We were wrong.

If you plan on seeing this, please skip ahead to the next entry. We’ll give you some space.

…..

…….

……….

……………

Okay you’ve either seen it or don’t give a fuck, both are fine.

So here’s the deal. It more-or-less starts on a small-but-super-expensive yacht cruise, and sets itself up as the difference between the have’s and have-not’s. Woody Harrelson is there as the captain, randomly. There’s an influencer and her model boyfriend, a Russian oligarch, and an old couple who made a fortune manufacturing weapons, amongst others.

Then it turns into about 4 different movies. First, PIRATES show up (Captain Phillips) who SHOOT the YACHT with a BAZOOKA, and it sinks (Poseidon Adventure? Titanic?) and the surviving crew and passengers end up stranded on an island (Cast Away), while power dynamics turn into insanity (Lord of the Flies). We were not prepared how far this movie went from it starting point.

Should it Win?

No. It’s the worst-rated movie of all nominations, and you could maybe argue that the nominations came partly from him getting snubbed publicly in 2015. We liked it, mind you – we listed it as the 6th best of the nominations.

Will it Win? 

Not by a longshot.

Women Talking

What’s it About

Somewhat based on a true story, it’s…listen the story is grim. So consider yourself warned.

But yeah, basically a Mennonite community has a series of, well, the men tranquilizing the women of the colony and…listen, we try to be funny here, so, you can read the plot on their Wikipedia page.

Anyway, the men leave for a few days, and the women decide if they want to stay, leave, or fight. It’s based off a novel inspired by events in community in Bolivia, though it feels like one of those “this was a play before it was a movie” kind of movies.

It only received two nominations, including Best Screenplay.

Should it Win?

No. It’s a well-made film, but we had it as our 7th favorite.

Will it Win? 

Of all these films, this had the least nominations, and has far more wins for Best Screenplay of its other award nominations than it has for Best Picture. This is definitely among the least likely to break through, though it might get a Screenplay win.

So there you have it. We’ve spent way too much time watching these movies so we could spend way too much time writing about it.

Stay tuned, since we’ll likely do another article for Actor/Actress and Supporting Actress so you can point out how we were wrong about everything come Oscar Sunday.