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The 95th Academy Awards Were, Dare We Say It, Good?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 13, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 13, 2023 |

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Another year, another Oscars ceremony. After a prolonged season that dragged well into mid-March and ceaseless Discourse, the 95th Academy Awards came to a fitting end. For the first time in a while, things didn’t feel 100% safe in terms of the predicted winners. There were a few locks but also a lot of real races in major categories. Whatever you thought of the outcomes, and there are many Opinions to be had, it was refreshing to enjoy the night without knowing everything was set in stone months prior.

Of course, a few shadows hung overhead with this year’s ceremony, and it was up to host Jimmy Kimmel to navigate it all. Hosting the Oscars might be the most thankless job in showbiz. If you’re good at it, people seldom care, but boy, they won’t let you forget it if you suck. Kimmel’s done this before and he’s a reasonably safe pair of hands. He’s snarky enough to land some fun jabs but not give into the urge to slag off the entire concept of awards season (Hasan Minhaj fell into this trap with the Independent Spirit Awards.) Personally, I think he did a decent job. There were laughs, cheers, a few disapproving gasps, and a cracking Ozempic line. And yes, The Slap was alluded to, although it wasn’t as heavily focused on as we expected. The joke was more on the Academy’s weird lack of response to the whole endeavor than anything else. It was quickly dealt with then they moved on, mercifully. There’s a reason they keep hiring Kimmel to do this, aside from his ties to ABC, although we could have done without the cringe-inducing crowd work. Just let these people sit in their seats and never have to talk to the host.

But you’re not here for the jokes, something that the producers seldom seem to understand. You’re here for the wins. You’re here for those moments of pure joy, like Ke Huy Quan winning Best Supporting Actor and sending everyone into fits of sobbing with his speech. You’re here for Jamie Lee Curtis thanking the people who supported the genre movies that defined her career for decades before her Best Supporting Actress victory, as well as her paying tribute to her legendary parents (seriously, a lot of tears after three categories!) You’re here for the breath-taking kinetic force of the ‘Naatu Naatu’ performance that had the Dolby Theater leaping to their feet in applause, and Brendan Fraser’s long-awaited comeback climaxing with his Best Actor win. Such moments embodied the kind of spirit-lifting fire that the Academy is so eager to replicate year after year. They can’t be faked. Not with overlong cocaine bear bits, and certainly not when you keep cutting off the speeches of non-famous tech winners. At least their achievements got to be part of the live show this year.

If you’d told any critic or awards prognosticator that the overwhelming frontrunner of the 2022 season would be a Sundance sci-fi comedy about an Asian-American family’s foray into the multiverse, complete with butt-plugs and culinarily-driven raccoons, you’d have been laughed out of the committee. The mere presence of Everything Everywhere All at Once felt like a crucial step forward for the Academy, regardless of how many awards it would eventually win.

Then All Quiet on the Western Front started racking up a hell of a lot of wins, both in categories where it was predicted to do so and those where it was not. Following the ceremony along on Twitter, you could sense audiences bracing themselves for the increasing possibility that EEAAO, which had been the dominant player all season in critics’ circles and guild awards, would be shafted. After all, what could possibly be more Oscars-esque than gazing at a fascinating new path forward then scuttling back to the middle of the road?

All Quiet wasn’t meant to be Netflix’s Oscar player. It slid through the cracks, building up goodwill as the streaming service’s more prominent contenders sank on the festival scene. It felt like, all of a sudden, it was a big deal. It dominated the BAFTAs, won over audiences (including my dad), and then started filling up its shelf with Oscars. It’s not a surprise, per se, that it performed so well, although I’m sure Netflix didn’t see their much fought for breakthrough at the Academy happening with this film. But it’s a war drama based on a highly important novel with an ever-relevant message. Of course, it was going to win all those awards. But it didn’t win Best Picture!

That’s right. A24 made history. The coolest indie studio in the business not only won its first Best Picture trophy, but it’s responsible for wins in all four acting categories, which is a new record. Its numerous wins were bolstered by the endless array of beautiful, funny, candid speeches from the likes of Yeoh, Quan, Fraser, and the Daniels. Again, why bother with the tedious comedy skits when the magic is in the speeches?

The Oscars shine in the small moments, like the brief explanation given to why cinematography matters during its category, complete with a demonstration of a particular shot from Citizen Kane. It’s brief but it exemplifies what the show is meant to do: get people to care about cinema. When I started becoming obsessed with film, it was because of those behind-the-scenes tidbits on TV specials, DVD extras, and awards ceremonies that let me see how the sausage was made. A whole generation of future storytellers could be born in these moments. That’s what the Academy and ABC should focus on, and at least we got more of that this year compared to whatever the hell went on in 2022 with the fan voted moments and cameos from Kelly Slater.

And those highs beat the lows, at least this year they did. Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar win was a peak the Academy has wanted to scale for so long, and watching it happen beat even our loftiest expectations. We talk a lot about how the Oscars aren’t to be viewed as measurements of merit, and that remains true even when the best wins. Yet the award’s status as a symbol of how the industry wants to view itself carries a certain sprinkling of power when the winners represent something more than the middlebrow. To see Michelle Yeoh, only the second woman of color to take home this award, collect her Oscar from Halle Berry, the first to do so, definitely means something to those who need it to.

This was a good Oscars. Not perfect, of course. The consistent lack of Black representation is the millstone that will drag the Academy to the bottom of the ocean. Too many speeches were cut short. Whoever decided to accompany the best make-up and hair win for The Whale with that foreboding image of naked Fraser in the fatsuit certainly made Choices. We cannot help but grade this dog and pony show on a curve because the Academy does what it does. But I’ll take the small joys wherever I can get them. And now, we can retire all of that Discourse. See you next year. I’m off to bed!

Full list of Winners

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
Tar
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking

BEST DIRECTOR
Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Daniels - Everything Everywhere All at Once
Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
Todd Field - Tar
Ruben Ostlund - Triangle of Sadness

BEST ACTOR
Austin Butler - Elvis
Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser - The Whale
Paul Mescal - Aftersun
Bill Nighy - Living

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett - Tar
Ana de Armas - Blonde
Andrea Riseborough - To Leslie
Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once

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

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

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Tar
Triangle of Sadness

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

BEST EDITING
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Tar
Top Gun: Maverick

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans

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

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

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo
Elvis
Empire of Light
Tar

BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIR
All Quiet on the Western Front
Batman
Black Panther
Elvis
The Whale

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Fire of Love
A House Made of Splinters
Navalny

BEST Animated FILM
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Marcel the Shell
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
The Sea Beast
Turning Red

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE
All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina 1985
Close
EO
The Quiet Girl

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, And the Horse
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
A Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
An Irish Goodbye
Ivalu
Le Pupille
Night Ride
The Red Suitcase

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

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Tell it Like A Woman
Top Gun: Maverick
Black Panther
RRR
Everything Everywhere All at Once

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere
The Fabelmans

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