Best Picture: Pre-Festival Predictions

Alright, now that we’re all settled and ready to go, here are the last Best Picture predictions before we head into the intense final four months of this movie year.

First things first, I was told by my Telluride contact to not expect the unexpected. Almost everything that’s been predicted to go is actually what will be going. There won’t be any “Babylon” surprise or David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam.” As Joe Pesci says in “The Irishman,” It is what it is.

The first 8 months of the year have given us 3 Best Picture contenders: “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” and “Elvis.”

Next month will give us “The Son,” “TAR,” “The Fabelmans,” “Bardo,” “Women Talking,” “The Whale,” “Bones & All,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Til,” “White Noise,” “She Said,” “Glass Onion,” and “Empire of Light.”

If Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Bardo” doesn’t get overwhelmingly positive reviews then its Oscar chances go down the drain. AGI needs the critics and its absence from the New York Film Festival is concerning. I’m told the film will not just be an autobiographical account of the director’s life, but will also tackle the pertinent and all-too relevant topic of illegal Mexican immigration to the US.

A person I spoke to yesterday, whose seen Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” told me nobody will be talking about this film after this year. It’ll probably still get Oscar noms, but I don’t think this will be seen as a some kind of pinnacle of Spielberg’s career. The film test-screened around a month ago to positive feedback.

Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” is quite literally that. A person posted a reaction last week and stated that this chamber piece was well-acted and directed. It’s a 90-minute movie about #MeToo dialogue that will surely strike a chord with some.

“The Whale” and “The Son” were both omitted from Telluride and New York. A person who has seen Aronofsky’s film tells me it will rile up many and that it has a polarizing, almost stagey, nature to it.

I’m not quite convinced that “White Noise” will break through its complicated source material with voters. Critics will be more willing to dive into Noah Baumbach’s satire.

Also, in a recent podcast, Eric Kohn mentioned that, contrary to what Venice boss Alberto Barbera has said, he’s heard that “Bones & All” isn’t an Oscar player, but rather an arthouse genre affair. I suspected that to be the case.

Then there’s Todd Field’s “TAR,” the one film this fall I am absolutely confident will create Oscar waves. It’s already screened in California for very select critics, and the two reactions I got were rapturous. This is the one film that TIFF must be kicking themselves for letting slip by this year.

As for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it’s in my predictions, why wouldn’t it be? I’ve been saying since the Spring that there isn’t, and has never been, a timeline in regards to its release.

Apple had set a tentative December 2022 date with the full notion that it would all be left in Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s hands. Both have been given carte blanche — if they hand over a wet print of ‘Killers’ to Apple in December then it will be released that month. The Cannes 2023 rumor just always seemed so out there and unrealistic. Why risk a major $200 million Oscar player’s awards chances by making it premiere in the middle of the year, at a festival known for its hostile press? I don’t buy it.

Predictions 08/21/22

• TAR

• Babylon

• The Fabelmans

• The Son

• Women Talking

• Bardo

• Killers of the Flower Moon

• Everything Everywhere All At Once

• Top Gun: Maverick

• Elvis