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The 95th Academy Awards airs tonight, with Netflix garnering an impressive 16 nominations and expected to win its fair share of awards. We’ll take a look at the streamer’s chances this weekend and who we think is likely to catch statues when the dust settles.
The Netflix boss, if you will, is the latest incarnation of All calm on the west front. A visceral and violent journey of a group of young German soldiers on the French front during the last days/hours of World War I, as Germany seeks to reach a peace agreement at the end of the Great War.
With nine nominations under her belt, she’s very likely to pick up multiple wins along with Everything everywhere at once.
While it is considered a frontrunner for all the major technical awards (including cinematography and production design), the biggest ones are Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, International Feature Film, and Original Score. Parasite it has been able to win both Best Picture and Best International Film in the past, but it remains to be seen if the war movie will be able to walk away with a similar pattern of wins. With 10 named nominees, including multi-million dollar hits like Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Path of Water it makes it a little harder to predict what that result will look like for Best Picture. On the other hand, something as big as Avatar lost Best Picture and Best Director in 2010 to Kathryn Bigelow’s war thriller the wounded lockerso war movies tend to do well with Oscar voters and given the number of nominations, it’s hard to see it not getting something big.
All Quiet on the Western Front – Picture: Netflix
Speaking of cinematography, all silent Goes up against other Netflix Originals Bard: False chronicle of a handful of truths by filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. Another solid contender given that his revenge-survival-thriller the revenant won Best Cinematography in 2016.
Actress Ana de Armas was nominated for Best Actress for her portrayal of Hollywood royalty Marilyn Monroe in the dramatized version of the famed actress’s personal life in Blond. Of course, with any major acting category you have some talented rivals for the statue with Cate Blanchett (Tar) and Michelle Yeoh (Everything everywhere at once) mostly seen has the top two favorites to win. While the nomination was a bit unexpected, but not surprising, there is a slim chance of an upset victory for Blond might shake things up a bit.
Crystal Onion: A Knives Out Mystery screenwriter rian johnson has been here before when the first installment of his Benoit Blanc saga, knives outHe was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2020, but lost the award to Bong Joon Ho for his fantastic work on the thriller. Parasite. The whodunnit script goes head-to-head with the aforementioned All calm on the west front for Best Adapted Screenplay and there can only be one winner, however the fact that Netflix has two contenders means it has two really good shots at the award.
Another high-profile nomination is for Best Animated Feature, it’s hard to argue that a win for Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro it’s guaranteed or even assumed given the number of wins the fairy tale movie has already scored during this awards season. That being said, there is stiff competition with Puss in Boots: The Last Wishand Pixar’s remarkable multi-win history could give its Toronto ensemble turning red an edge. She also goes up against Netflix’s other big animation contender, The Beast of the Sea On the other hand, if there was a displeasure and pinocchio doesn’t win, it’s hard to be terribly angry given the quality of the other films in the competition.
Image: Netflix
Documentary short is a bit harder to predict than most categories, but Netflix has both. the elephant whisperers and The Martha Mitchell Effect nominated is a good sign that the streamer could end up taking him as well. We wouldn’t bet against it either. RRR (not a Netflix original) for winning best song, even though it will be up against superstars like Lady Gaga (Top Gun: Maverick) and Rhianna (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever).
If you haven’t recorded your Oscar predictions or groups yet, there’s still time, as the awards won’t be handed out until 8pm ET/5pm PT this Sunday and will air on ABC (in the US).