It’s official: Everything Everywhere All at Once will win Best Picture.
Following its victories at both the DGA Awards last week and the PGA Awards this Saturday, the film won a record four SAG Awards at last night’s ceremony, for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (for Michelle Yeoh), Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for Ke Huy Quan), and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (for Jamie Lee Curtis). Its performance with this awards body gave us the final proof we’ve needed to be sure of what we’ve assumed for months – EEAAO’s strength lies with actors, who simply absolutely adore this thing (though it seems almost every voter in every guild does these days), and they’ll be the ones to push it over the edge in The Academy as the biggest branch, and perhaps get Michelle Yeoh that long-awaited Best Actress win as well.
But Yeoh was far from the only one to benefit from last night’s news, as Curtis’ win was a tremendous surprise (but a welcome one for the EEAAO campaign, as this further bolsters the narrative of how overwhelmingly beloved the film is) and served as a massive shake-up to an already fractured Best Supporting Actress race. Angela Bassett was the early frontrunner after wins at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, but now, it’s The Banshees of Inisherin’s Kerry Condon and Curtis who have the industry awards (after Condon claimed the BAFTA last week), making them the main two battling it out for the Oscar ultimately. But if Curtis is now a legitimate contender to win the Oscar, that begs the question… how many Oscars will Everything Everywhere All at Once win at the end of the day? Will it become the first film in 46 years to win three acting awards? Let’s take this category by category.
Best Picture
Everything Everywhere All at Once led Oscar nominations with 11 nods, is win competitive in at least seven of those categories, and will enter Oscar night with wins from the DGA, PGA, SAG, and likely WGA and ACE too. The last time a film swept the guilds like that? 2012’s Argo, which won Best Picture. Let’s not waste time on this one – it’s winning (as yours truly has predicted since the start of the season).
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes.
Best Director
The Daniels led the critics awards in Best Director pretty handily, and then lost the first major televised award of the season (the Golden Globe) to Steven Spielberg, who was seen as their “closest competitor.” Still, they rebounded fairly quickly with a win from the Critics Choice Awards, and they further bolstered their claim to the Oscar thanks to their BAFTA nomination (a ceremony where Spielberg wasn’t even longlisted) even though they ended up losing to All Quiet on the Western Front’s Edward Berger (a non-Oscar nominee, which makes this a moot point). However, the biggest ace up their sleeve is their DGA Award, which has correctly predicted the Oscar all but eight times in its 75 years of existence.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes.
Best Actress
I’m not gonna pretend like Best Actress is a “for sure done deal,” because none of us can deny that Cate Blanchett – with a Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, and BAFTA Award under her belt (to say nothing of her dominance with the critics) – is a strong challenger. However, everything is coming together perfectly for Michelle Yeoh to become the second woman of color (and first Asian woman) to win Best Actress on March 12th. Not only is she starring in the Best Picture winner – that is about to simultaneously potentially sweep the Oscars – but she now has a Golden Globe and the SAG Award (that all-important industry award) on her side. And not only that, but the SAG Awards were the last televised precursor to occur before Oscar voting, sending her and the film into this final stage of the season with massive momentum (as I predicted would happen last October).
And while many expected EEAAO to have a good night at the SAG Awards, few of us expected it to do this well and break the all-time record, showing that we’ve still been underestimating the adoration actors have for this film and this cast. That – along with EEAAO overindexing across-the-board – is exactly what Yeoh needs to conceivably challenge Blanchett for the Oscar win, and I think she will. Plus, if you look at historical precedent, this interestingly isn’t the first time Cate Blanchett won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, and BAFTA only to lose to someone who only had the Comedy/Musical Golden Globe and SAG Award, but was starring in a Best Picture winner. The year was 1998 – Cate Blanchett was contending for Elizabeth, while Gwyneth Paltrow ultimately prevailed for Shakespeare in Love.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes, but there’s the potential for an upset.
Best Supporting Actor
Even though Barry Keoghan stopped Ke Huy Quan from being this season’s lone acting sweeper after a surprise upset at the BAFTAs, Quan is back on top following his SAG win, and nothing is gonna stop him now. He dominated the critics awards, has the best narrative of the year, and finally has an industry award to back him up as well. He’s taking it.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes.
Best Supporting Actress
Jamie Lee Curtis’ Oscar campaign has been one of the most fascinating to follow this year. After EEAAO initially premiered, no one was citing her as a standout or a potential Oscar contender. But as one of the film’s most enthusiastic campaigners and cheerleaders all year long, she’s been brought along for the ride, and though her ability to land noms at all four of the major televised precursors made some question if she had the strength to then ultimately win this thing (I personally predicted her for the Golden Globe), once Angela Bassett took hold of the “let’s recognize a long overdue veteran” narrative in Best Supporting Actress, it seemed like she was down for the count (and even moreso after Kerry Condon won the BAFTA). But now that she has a SAG Award – one of the two major industry awards – we absolutely have to take her seriously.
At the moment, I’d say that Curtis’ SAG win was worse for Bassett than it was good for Curtis, marginally so. Bassett losing both industry awards (after being widely predicted to win SAG) means she’s likely third at best in this race, as the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards have no voter overlap with the Oscars (and sure, you can say “Regina King,” but at least the SAG Award went to someone who wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar that year, A Quiet Place’s Emily Blunt). Curtis’ win to me feels like something that occurred as a result of very close voting and EEAAO adoration pushing her over the edge, along with the prospect of finally awarding an overdue icon, which is a narrative SAG is susceptible to from time to time (look no further than Sam Elliott’s equally surprising win earlier in the evening).
However, she did then give arguably the best speech of the night, which is a monstrous boost to her campaign mere days before final Oscar voting opens. Might Academy voters feel an urge to award this screen legend now as well? Perhaps, especially if EEAAO love really is impossible to contain and they just vote for it down ballot. But then there’s the Kerry Condon of it all. If you’re not predicting The Banshees of Inisherin to win here or in the next category we’re about to discuss, you’re probably predicting it to go home empty handed, which… feels wrong for a film that has been so beloved this season (even if it did just occur at the SAG Awards) and has loads of international support in particular (as evidenced by its four BAFTA wins, including one for Condon).
Yes, Condon isn’t as big a name as Curtis, but then again, neither was BAFTA winner Mark Rylance when he bested Best Supporting Actor frontrunner Sylvester Stallone in 2015 – all he needed was those international votes (as well as starring in a stronger film, which you could actually argue Curtis has as well). Condon also led the critics awards in this category and has been hailed as a scene-stealer and MVP from Banshees all year long, with a role that better fits the mold of a Best Supporting Actress winner than Curtis (the witty “voice of reason” who gets all the best lines and puts the men in their place). It’s gonna be a nailbiter, but I also think Bassett, while no longer a contender to win, will still get some votes as well, which could split the “let’s award a veteran” contingent between her and Curtis. As of now, in a remarkably close race, I’m using that as justification (along with her BAFTA win and the intense appreciation for Banshees’ overall) to go with Condon.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? I don’t think so… but it’s very possible.
Best Original Screenplay
Early on this season, many of us said that the race for Best Original Screenplay would come down to Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin, with this matchup mirroring the one between Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017. Banshees, like Three Billboards, has won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. However, both films were outshined by the experimental genre-bending indie with a socially relevant story that captured the zeitgeist. Both EEAAO and Get Out won the Critics Choice Award, and then Get Out went on to win the WGA Award as well (where Three Billboards was ineligible, as Banshees is), en route to Oscar.
Since EEAAO is equally favored to win the WGA, I’m predicting it to follow this path too (especially after its recent strength across all the guilds), but I understand the case behind an upset. Still, I think the love for EEAAO is just so clearly overwhelming at this point that I can’t possibly not predict it, and though writer-directors don’t always win both Best Director and a screenplay award (Chloé Zhao, Jane Campion, etc.), this feels to me like a Birdman/Parasite scenario, where a creator (or creators, in this case) puts out a project so revolutionarily inventive that they’re awarded everywhere they can be for their vision.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes, but there’s the potential for an upset.
Best Costume Design
Even though there is the possibility that Everything Everywhere All at Once REALLY overindexes and picks up wins we weren’t even previously anticipating for it, I still think Best Costume Design is one of the least likely. Its only major nomination prior to the Oscars (aside from a CDG nod in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category) was at the Critics Choice Awards, where it lost to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, while Elvis (assumed to be the Oscar frontrunner) won the BAFTA. Maybe there’s a shock in store, but I’ll say no for now.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? No for now, but never say never.
Best Film Editing
Yes, I know Everything Everywhere All at Once doesn’t have a Best Sound nomination, which is usually crucial to be a Best Film Editing winner (a film hasn’t won without one since 2006’s The Departed). But, had there still been two Sound categories (as there was prior to 2020), you could make the case that EEAAO would’ve found its way into one, especially with how well it still performed with the sound guilds. And additionally, in spite of its lack of a Best Sound nomination, EEAAO has still been winning almost all the Best Film Editing awards – simply because it’s that damn showy with a “never-before-seen” allure to Paul Rogers’ work. It’s got the Critics Choice Award. It’s got the BAFTA. And come Saturday, it’ll likely have the (Comedy) ACE as well. I know Top Gun remains a fierce competitor thanks to its Best Sound nom and probable victory in that category (along with a likely (Drama) ACE win), but EEAAO has the heat right now.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? Yes, but there’s the potential for an upset.
Best Original Score
Best Original Score is a weird one, and for now, I’d say this is a similar situation to what I discussed above in the Best Costume Design category. There are two frontrunners ahead of EEAAO at the moment (Babylon, which won the Golden Globe, and All Quiet on the Western Front, which won the BAFTA Award – and the only industry award), but since there’s such confusion in this category, there’s potential for EEAAO to overperform and pick up a win here that “no one saw coming,” especially since its nomination alone was already a miracle after all it had under its belt was a BAFTA nod. I think I’d believe in an upset here before one in Best Costume Design… but I’ll still probably be going back-and-forth between Babylon and All Quiet.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? I don’t think so… but it’s very possible.
Best Original Song
RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” has won the Best Original Song at both the Golden Globe Awards and the Critics Choice Awards, so it feels foolish to bet against it for the Oscar. However, just as I said when discussing Best Costume Design and Best Original Score, there always is the possibility that EEAAO love uplifts “This Is A Life” over the nominee from a film that has no other nods to its name. Still, this feels like the best place to recognize the international phenomenon that was RRR, and I don’t think many will want to deny that team of that.
Will EEAAO win this Oscar? No for now, but never say never.
Conclusion
As of now, I’m predicting Everything Everywhere All at Once to win six Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing), which would be the highest haul for a Best Picture winner since 2009’s The Hurt Locker, which also won six (2011’s The Artist is the next highest, with five). However, with Jamie Lee Curtis asserting herself as a major Best Supporting Actress challenger – and a potential upset brewing in Best Original Score – the sky is the limit for this thing.
As it always has been.
