It’s safe to say Prairie Ridge High School is better at football than predicting the Oscars. I personally conducted a survey before the Oscars for all PR students, asking them who they think will win in each category. On average, students correctly predicted 6 out of the 23 categories … not too great! But, hey, there were a lot of shocks at this year’s Oscars! It was hard to predict! The winner, though, with 14 correct guesses of the 23, was senior Kailyn Daum! Congratulations, Kailyn! Everyone else… maybe hit the theaters and do a little studying for next year. 

Going into the Oscars, it was predicted and collectively decided that the film Everything Everywhere All at Once would win the majority of its 11 nominations. However, it grew awkwardly all quiet at the Dolby Theatre as All Quiet on the Western Front, the Netflix foreign war film, started winning multiple awards in a row. It’s difficult to explain the Academy’s across-the-board fondness for boring war movies. The scrambled adaption tells a somber story of WWI from the perspective of German soldiers; however, its grating three-note-score doesn’t deserve its win over the king of rock and roll! All Quiet won best international feature, production design, cinematography, and best score, totalling 4 Oscars. 

The Twitter panic over this German war film winning out lasted only a short while. After Ke Huy Quan won best supporting actor for his character Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere, things were back on track, as predicted by 72% of PR students. This win particularly made him the first Vietnamese born supporting actor to win an Oscar and he gave such a heartwarming acceptance speech, the internet fell in love with him. Rising superstar, Michelle Yeoh, also made history as the first Asian Best Actress in Academy history for her role as Evelyn Quan Wang. 55% of PR students predicted this win for Michelle Yeoh, and she is more than worthy of it. This sci-fi, multiverse, A24 movie took home all the big prizes, as predicted. The pair of directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert took home the best directing Oscar, and only 37% of students had this pair as their winner for best directing. The rest of the votes were for Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.

The best picture category was packed with all terrific and deserving movies, and the students here at PR felt the same. Votes were split between Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Top Gun Maverick believe it or not. Only the  most clever 13.8% of students actually got it right: Everything Everywhere was the best picture winner for 2023. The Daniel director pair had created an A24 movie so spectacularly different that it took home 7 total Oscars by the end of the night. In fact, A24 films had a very successful night for the first time really in Academy history, we have never seen this many wins for the quirky production company especially in such big categories.  

The king of rock and roll was completely shut out by the Academy. Elvis went in with a dominating 8 nominations and left with nothing–quite the shock for 31-year-old Austin Butler who was favored to win Best Actor for his commitment to the role of Elvis through his intense voice training lessons, dance rehearsals as well as guitar music lessons. The film was an immense commercial success, making 287.3 million at the box office! It was a people’s favorite! It’s still a shock for this writer over how brutally Elvis was robbed. 

Alongside Elvis, The Banshees of Inisherin received 9 nominations but went home empty-handed as well. This was a shock because they won 4 prizes at the British Academy awards ceremony. Perhaps the British just have better taste? Cate Blanchett’s hopeful career revival Tár also went home with nothing to show for the 6 nominations, quite controversial because most assumed the Academy would love the weird orchestra movie. Steven Spielberg, a three-time Oscar winner, and his crew walked away from the ceremony empty-handed. The Fabelmans is loosely based on Speilberg’s upcoming into the filmmaking business. He has expressed on multiple occasions how difficult this film was to create for him because it touched on so many tender and trauma sensitive areas in his life. But the Academy really doesn’t care for our feelings because they gave Jamie Lee Curtis best supporting actress. 

A recent drought of care for the Oscars has been lingering the past decade. The views have been declining steadily, and most of this decline has to do with the controversy of the Oscars being “too white.” However, ABC remains hopeful there will be more viewers next year since there was more diversity in this year’s ceremony. Overall, the 2023 Oscars were quite the success. Also, after Jimmy Kimmel’s joyful performance as the host, many remain hopeful for better Oscar ceremonies in the future. I expect nothing less for the Academy’s 96th Oscars.