Ranking: 2023 Oscars Best Picture Nominees

The 2023 Academy Awards are here, which means the 2022 movie year is almost officially over. This year’s Oscars finds Everything Everywhere All at Once leading the way in nominations with eleven, followed by The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front with nine, respectively. 

This year’s Best Picture nominees are a strong bunch of movies. Seven of the ten films nominated landed in my personal top twenty movies of 2022, with four of them landing in my top ten. Every year it feels like there is a Best Picture nominee that I do not particularly like, but that isn’t the case this year. While there are other films I would have nominated or that I feel are more worthy of being a best picture nominee, every film nominated for Best Picture I consider good. 

Here is my ranking of the Best Picture nominees from the 2023 Academy Awards.

 

1. The Banshees of Inisherin

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s best film to date is a pitch-black comedy about the broken friendship of two men (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) on a small Irish island. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking look at friendship, your personal legacy, and what it means to be nice. Led by a quartet of brilliant performances from Farrell, Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, and Kerry Condon, all of whom are nominated for Oscars, The Banshees of Inisherin was the best movie of 2022 and the movie I would like to see win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Available on HBO Max and to rent.

2. The Fabelmans

It’s amazing that Steven Spielberg can still “wow” me as a director even after over fifty years of making movies. The Fabelmans is a semi-autobiographical look at Spielberg’s life growing up and the effect his parents’ divorce had on him as a person and as a filmmaker. This is Spielberg’s most personal film to date and is loaded with the technical wizardry and magic that we have come to know and love from Spielberg over the last half-century.

Available to rent.

3. Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick was the most surprising movie of 2022. Nobody thought it was going to be as good of a movie as it was. Nobody knew it was going to break box office records and become a cultural phenomenon. Nobody could have predicted that it was going to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars back in May. And yet here we are and I could not be happier. This is a legendary sequel and one of the best movies of 2022.

Available on Paramount+ and to rent.

4. Everything Everywhere All at Once

This year’s frontrunner for Best Picture would be one of the great wins of the last decade. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s multiversal-sci-fi-action comedy is one of the most original movies I have seen in a long time. It is loaded with incredible set pieces, has an amazing cast led by the legend Michelle Yeoh, features talking rocks, and has an emotional core that will pull on the heartstrings. I love this movie and can’t wait for it to win Best Picture.

Available on Showtime and to rent.

5. TÁR

Todd Field hasn’t made a film in sixteen years, but the wait was worth it. TÁR is an engrossing portrait of a troubled composer (an astonishing Cate Blanchett) and her life as she prepares for her latest performance. Field’s screenplay is dense and complicated and is brought to life by Blanchett’s sublime performance. Field’s greatest trick is making the film feel like we are watching a movie about a real person, something only a gifted filmmaker would be able to do. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another sixteen years for Field to make another film.

Available on Peacock and to rent.

7. Avatar: The Way of Water

James Cameron waited thirteen years to take us back to the mystical world of Pandora and the wait was worth it. Avatar: The Way of Water is a visual marvel made for the big screen. Cameron continues to push the boundaries of visual effects and seeing this on the big screen was one of the filmgoing highlights of 2022.

Now in theaters.

7. Women Talking

Women Talking finds a group of women in an isolated religious community debating on what they should do following a series of abuse from the men in the community. Sarah Polley’s powerful and complex drama features one of the best screenplays of the year and the year’s best ensemble, featuring stellar work from the likes of Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, and several more. This is a movie that sticks with you long after it is over.

Available to rent.

8. Elvis

Austin Butler gives the performance of a lifetime in Elvis, Baz Luhrman’s flashy, shiny, wild biopic about the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. Luhrman’s energetic and lively brings this story to life and while the movie is a lot to handle the first time you see it, it gets more rewarding on additional viewings. Butler gives one of the year’s great performances and would be a worthy Best Actor winner.

Available on HBO Max and to rent.

9. All Quiet on the Western Front

Director Edward Berger’s brutal and intense war film is a technical wonder, with outstanding costumes, cinematography, production design, and make-up. Though not as good as the 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel (which went on to win Best Picture at the 1930 Academy Awards) this is a harrowing film about the horrors of war.

Available on Netflix.

10. Triangle of Sadness

My least favorite Best Picture nominee is still a movie I like quite a bit. Ruben Ostland is back to poke fun at the rich, famous, and stupid in this biting and gross dramedy. It runs a bit long and I did not care for the middle section too much, but the first act and third act are some of the best filmmaking of Ostland’s career.

Available on Hulu and to rent.

 

 

 

 

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