| The Banshees of Inisherin | Everything Everywhere All At Once | The Fabelmans | Top Gun: Maverick | TAR |
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| McDonagh’s fans are very passionate. Now that he is back in his native country, the Academy could be very receptive | Came in and stole all the “early season buzz” from The Batman. People who love it REALLY love it | Spielberg is beloved and it’s a personal story. Seems like a safe bet | Impossible to ignore at this point. This may be too low a placement | The Academy rarely goes for this type of film, but its champions are loud and passionate |
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| Elvis | Avatar: The Way of Water | All Quiet on the Western Front | The Woman King | The Whale |
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| The Academy can’t make up their minds when it comes to Luhrmann, but all the ingredients are there | It’s hard to ignore James Cameron in normal situations, but they really dug the original and they could love this too | Netflix put a lot of eyes on the film, and it’s getting almost universal praise. International films need to be taken seriously | Great reviews and surprising box office, but the buzz is cooled significantly | Very divisive, but still seems up the Oscars’ alley |
| | ALTERNATIVES | | |
| Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Women Talking | Babylon | GDT’s Pinocchio | RRR |
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| The original probably just missed the BP lineup. This one could be just as close | What the hell happened here? A shocking amount of precursor misses | Extremely divisive reaction certainly didn’t help | Buzz has fallen off, but still has an outside shot | An international sensation that is going to get closer to Best Picture specifically because it missed International Feature |
| | MORE ALTERNATIVES | | |
| She Said | Aftersun | Decision to Leave | Triangle of Sadness | Empire of Light |
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| Box office could be the big barrier. Needs tons of precursor attention | The critical behemoth that has come out of nowhere. It’s fanbase is rabid | The International branch has managed to get a film into the BP lineup for three out of four years. Maybe this is another one | Could face “internal” competition from Decision, but Ostlund has his fanatics | Sam Mendes has recently returned to AMPAS’ good graces. You can never count him out. Feels like an older voter film |
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IceCream4Freaks 