Let's rank the 2023 Oscar Best Picture nominees

Much of the coverage of the 2023 Oscar nominations, , noted the tremendous showing for Edward Berger’s . While nine nominations, including one for Best Picture, was a genuine surprise, maybe it shouldn’t have been. This latest big screen adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1928 World War I novel is a powerful, urgent and unsparing depiction of war that takes its rightful place alongside other brutally realistic wartime epics like . Berger doesn’t spare the mud, blood or despair in telling the story of a group of gung-ho recruits, led by Paul (Felix Kammerer, earning our sympathy from the get-go), who soon learns there’s a reason why World War I would eventually be christened The War to End All Wars. Every shot conveys its own separate horror, from the soldiers collecting dog tags from their fallen comrades to the hundreds of rats stampeding to avoid oncoming Allied tanks. It’s a true descent into hell and, if the film wins Best Picture, it’ll join the previous big screen adaptation of the novel, which won Best Picture (then called Outstanding Production) at the 3rd Academy Award ceremony held in 1930. [Mark Keizer]

This year’s domestic box office champ now also has the industry’s top stamp of approval. While only Tom Cruise himself that would become the 2022 hit more responsible for bringing nervous audiences back into cineplexes than any other, it was unclear until today whether commercial success would cancel out prestige. The Academy gave the high-flying sequel, directed by Joseph Kosinski and scripted by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, six nominations—a ploy to encourage ceremony viewership? Not when you consider the film on its own merits. Cruise’s return as the rebellious Navy pilot Maverick works even if you’ve never seen 1986’s Top Gun, or even if you’ve lived in a cave and didn’t know who Cruise was. His old school movie star energy is just as compelling as the awe-inspiring aerial stunts that make audiences feel every G. Even if it’s not as psychologically profound or politically daring as other titles on this list, that almost-meta quality makes Maverick a fitting addition to a Best Picture lineup that future cinema historians will point to as the year Hollywood made a post-pandemic rebound. [Jack Smart]

The obvious joke (and you can have this one, Jimmy Kimmel) is that if you want to make a movie that men will go out of their way to avoid, call it . In all seriousness, though, Women Talking was a movie that very few people—men or women—actually saw. Which is a shame, because it deserves a wider audience. Writer-director Sarah Polley’s lyrical, intimate adaptation of the novel by Miriam Toews lets us into the sacred spaces of a closed community of Mennonite women as they express themselves in ways they’re clearly not accustomed to. The Oscar-nominated script focuses in on a lengthy discussion of the choice facing the women of the colony after a group of men are arrested for sexual assault—should they stay and fight or leave their home behind forever? Its implications are much wider, though. Just as these women (played by Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Claire Foy, among others) have been chosen to represent the women of their community, they speak for all women who have had to face similar choices as the result of the actions of toxic men. The chances that Women Talking will take home an Oscar (even in the Adapted Screenplay category) are not high, but the nominations alone will give it a platform to reach more potential filmgoers, and that’s a win in itself. [Cindy White]

Because it premiered on the heels of last year’s Academy Awards, it feels we’ve said pretty much, well, everything there is to say about the nomination leader of the 2023 Oscars. In fact, A24’s March release date of is one of the top reasons its domination is so impressive. Then, of course, there’s the fact it was made for $25 million and looks far more expensive, the fact that it’s a profitable original story rather than superhero IP (poor Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness sure was upstaged). And the fact that that story centers a Chinese-American family and its ass-kicking heroine of a matriarch—which is far from the Oscars’, or Hollywood’s, typical idea of success. But Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert tapped into something essential about our cultural consciousness, funneling the maximalism of the internet era through their signature heartfelt yet crudely irreverent style. They assembled a powerhouse cast, a whopping four of whom are Oscar-nominated (Michelle Yeoh, a cinematic legend who’s never gotten her leading-role due stateside; Ke Huy Quan, a beloved child star who hadn’t acted in years thanks to a similar lack of opportunities; Jamie Lee Curtis, a charismatic comedian at her silliest; and Stephanie Hsu, an overnight star), and gave them hilarious, heartfelt material. And they challenged and expanded our definitions of prestige cinema. If Everything Everywhere doesn’t win Best Picture, its fans may beat Oscar voters to death with dildos. [Jack Smart]

While other nominees on Oscar’s list concern themselves with everything, everywhere, all at once, zeroes in on a singular event, miniscule enough to have you wondering how anyone could have conjured a full-length story out of it. Yes, there’s a subtle backdrop of 1920s civil war on Irish shores beyond the titular, fictional island. But the friendship breakup writer-director Martin McDonagh explores between rejector Colm (Brendan Gleeson) and poor rejectee Pádraic (Colin Farrell) is more specific than symbolic, a microcosm that doesn’t seek to make some macro conclusion. If Colm’s growing sense of obsolescence or Pádraic’s disillusionment resonates, good for you. It seems more like McDonagh’s main objective was creating a pair of roles for his In Bruges muses to play around with, gifting them, and us, one of the funniest and simultaneously most tragic onscreen dynamics in years. Farrell’s expressive eyebrows deserve an Oscar all their own, and it’s fitting that he, Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, and Kerry Condon achieved the rare feat of four acting nods for one film. With nine noms in all, The Banshees Of Inisherin may be this year’s epitome of cohesion between filmmaker and cast, with a gorgeous score and scenery thrown in for good measure. If only Jenny the gentle donkey had merited a nod as well. [Jack Smart]

Could the real legacy of be that audiences mistook it for a biopic? Even the fact that Twitter has memed Lydia Tár’s existence into an ongoing joke feels in keeping with Todd Field’s vision. It’s like the writer-director knew just how close he was hitting the bullseye in inventing a conductor-composer who’s balancing artistic genius, abuse of power, and its devastating consequences in Western society circa 2022. Yet while the narrative of cancel culture becomes more and more recognizable as Lydia’s elite life unravels, so does Tár’s refusal to pigeonhole itself as something as basic as a mystery, thriller, or even character study. It’s all of those things and, especially considering the epic prank it plays on us in its final moments, a laugh-out-loud comedy. The film’s six nominations in top Oscar categories, including for Field’s writing and directing and a mind-bogglingly masterful turn from Cate Blanchett, confoundingly don’t honor its music. More than any other nominee this year, Tár must be heard to be believed. [Jack Smart]