The Oscar nominations revealed Tuesday lay out a Best Picture race that encompasses a broad range of films, from box office blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick to a movie that made its debut at a non-traditional awards-launching festival (Everything Everywhere All at Once, at SXSW), a Cannes Palme d’Or winner (Triangle of Sadness) and from fall festival faves like Venice (The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár), Toronto (The Fabelmans, All Quiet on the Western Front) and Telluride (Women Talking). The king has also entered the building with Elvis.
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Deadline has been there from the first glimpse of each with its reviews. Click on each title to see how we called ’em.
A Netflix/Amusement Park Film in co-production with Gunpowder Films in association with Sliding Down Rainbows Entertainment/Anima Pictures Production
Malte Grunert, producer
World premiere: Toronto Film Festival
Release date: October 7, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “Why not tell this very German story from a German POV for a change? It is surprising it hasn’t been done before, but it has been done now with a film that looks very polished thanks to fine cinematography from James Friend, production design from Christian M. Goldbeck, and a terrific score by Volker Bertelmann.”
A 20th Century Studios Production
James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers
World premiere: London
Release date: December 15, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “The film is beautiful, obsessive and eventful, a depiction of a veritable Eden threatened by voraciously destructive forces both natural and man-made. No one who enthused over the original would think of missing this follow-up, which ups the ante for all that is to come, creatively and financially.”
A Blueprint Pictures/Film4/TSG Entertainment Production
Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh
World premiere: Venice Film Festival
Release date: October 20, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “Martin McDonagh is up to more deliciously fiendish tricks in The Banshees of Inisherin, a simple and diabolical tale of a friendship’s end shot through with bristling humor and sudden moments of startling violence.”
A Bazmark Production
Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss
World premiere: Cannes Film Festival
Release date: June 23, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “There is a lingering undertone that if Presley stuck to his own natural instincts rather than allowing Parker to follow his, things would have been much different. The shrewd nature of this film is not to just to present the man behind the title, but also what the machine behind Elvis really was, and who it was that made it happen.”
A Hot Dog Hands Production
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, producers
World premiere: SXSW
Release date: March 24, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “In Everything Everywhere All At Once, nothing you see is by accident … . Every subject addressed is essential to moving the story forward, which is a credit to The Daniels and their powerful storytelling. And when you think things have reached the height of ridiculousness, the directors swack you again by raising the stakes even more.”
An Amblin Partners Production
Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, producers
World premiere: Toronto Film Festival
Release date: November 11, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “There is so much to take in with Spielberg’s memory play, a look back at the boy who would become a legend himself but who assured the opening night audience at TIFF that this is not his farewell.”
A Standard Film Company/EMJAG Production
Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert, producers
World premiere: Venice Film Festival
Release date: October 7, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “… The film represents a daring and quite comprehensive immersion in a rarified world and features a lead performance the likes of which doesn’t come along very often. For anyone seriously interested in the refined arts, it’s something to deeply inhale again and again.”
A Paramount Pictures/Skydance/Jerry Bruckheimer Films Production
Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison and Jerry Bruckheimer, producers
World premiere: USS Midway, San Diego
Release date: May 26, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “Not only is the timing right and execution of this long-gestating follow-up splendid, but it also actually tops the original in every way imaginable, from an all-knowing performance for the ages from Cruise to its emotional storyline, “take my breath away” aerial sequences and just about anything else you want from a studio blockbuster.”
A Plattform Production
Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober, producers
World premiere: Cannes Film Festival
Release date: October 7, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “Triangle of Sadness is a mission statement about equality: that it doesn’t exist, that it cannot exist, that while calamity may bring the downfall of the top dogs, new curs will replace them and behave in exactly the same way.”
A Plan B Entertainment / hear/say Production
Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Frances McDormand, producers
World premiere: Telluride Film Festival
Release date: December 22, 2022
Deadline’s takeaway: “Polley works on developing a tone that is beguiling in its elusiveness; it’s frisky and yet dead serious, dreamy but committed to life’s essentials, aesthetically playful even when dealing with harsh realities. It skips and dances and is hard to nail down even as it prepares to deliver its heavyweight blows …”
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