Oscars 2023: Best Editing Predictions
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We will update all our Oscar predictions throughout the season, so keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2023 Oscar race. The nomination round of voting will take place from January 12 to January 17, 2023, with the official Oscar nominations announced on January 24, 2023. The final voting is between March 2 and 7, 2023. Finally, the 95th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
The State of the Race
It’s now a race between “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” following their wins for Theatrical Drama and Comedy at the 73rd annual ACE Eddie Awards (March 5 at UCLA’s Royce Hall). They defeated the other three Oscar nominees: “Elvis” and “TÁR” for Drama and “The Banshees of Inisherin” for Comedy.
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Best Picture Oscar favorite “EEAAO” defies categorization as a multiverse sci-fi adventure wrapped around a compelling family drama and comedy. However, it’s been a decade since a Best Picture winner (“Argo”) also won Best Editing, so the high-octane “Maverick” remains the safe Oscar bet to win. Yet this would be a great opportunity for “EEAAO” to break the 10-year drought for its flashy editing in navigating the Daniels’ maximalist spectacle.
For editor Paul Rogers, cracking the genre-bending “EEAAO” was about finding the emotional connection between the combative mother and daughter who fight throughout the multiverse (played by Best Actress favorite Michelle Yeoh and Best Supporting Actress nominee Stephanie Hsu). The bombastic cutting and the wild aesthetic choices were carefully layered onto the central arc by Rogers, who managed to dabble with free-form and experimentation during the “verse jumping.”
“Maverick” was the early frontrunner for editor Eddie Hamilton’s technical virtuosity. He assembled and cut over 813 hours of amazing aerial footage (courtesy of the innovative Sony Rialto Camera Extension System overseen by Oscar-snubbed cinematographer Claudio Miranda) that put the audience inside the Navy fighter jet cockpits with Tom Cruise’s Maverick. It was a complex puzzle, but the result played effortlessly, kinetically, and emotionally.
Balancing comedy and drama in Martin McDonagh’s “Banshees” was the biggest challenge for “Sound of Metal” Oscar winner Mikkel E. G. Nielsen. His “dream scenario” in helping to escalate the feud between estranged drinking buddies Pádraic (Best Actor nominee Colin Farrell) and Colm (Best Supporting Actor nominee Brendan Gleeson) was to go unnoticed. But since this was a dark fable that uses the Irish Civil War as an allegory, Nielsen created a poignant breakup story that raises more questions than offering answers.
Baz Luhrmann’s delirious “Elvis” was modeled after “Amadeus,” with Tom Hanks’ conniving manager, Colonel Parker, functioning as an unreliable narrator and Best Actor nominee Austin Butler serving as the legendary, self-destructive musical superstar. This allowed editors Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond to find creative ways to balance the personal story of Elvis with the musical set pieces, which were treated like action sequences.
For Monika Willi, Todd Field’s “TÁR” was a work of high precision. It explores the public and private worlds of conductor/composer Lydia Tár (Best Actress nominee Cate Blanchett), filled with great tension and anxiety. It’s a cold, calculating dance between subjectivity and reality, wrapped around the musicality of Gustav Mahler to create a new cinematic composition.
Below are the nominees ranked in order of likelihood of winning:
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount)
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
“The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.)
“TÁR” (Focus Features)
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