“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “The Fabelmans” are among the movies that face moments of truth on Feb. 25 and 26
This is a year in which at least five films may have a legitimate shot at winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the events of this weekend could go a long way toward suggesting which movie has the upper hand.
After all, the two key events from last year that suggested that the dark horse indie “CODA” could actually score a Best Picture win were the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Feb. 27, when “CODA” won the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture award over “Belfast” and “King Richard,” among others; and the Producers Guild of America Awards on March 19, when it secured its spot as the frontrunner by winning the major guild award that most accurately predicts the Oscar.
This year, the Producers Guild Awards fall on Saturday, Feb. 25 and the SAG Awards on Sunday, Feb. 26. That’s a one-two punch that could go a long way toward bringing some clarity to a confusing race.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” could come out of the weekend as a strong frontrunner, or it could be reeling on Monday morning. “The Banshees of Inisherin” or “Top Gun: Maverick” or “The Fabelmans” could show some needed strength. Or things could get more muddled while “All Quiet on the Western Front” waits in the wings to show its strength.
Mind you, the SAG ensemble award has never been a very reliable Best Picture predictor, and it has matched the Academy’s top prize less than half the time in the 13 years since the Oscars went to 10 nominees. The Producers Guild Award is far more reliable, but even it has been a mismatch three times in the last seven years as the Academy has grown increasingly international.
Still, the SAG ensemble award has a track record of identifying potential Oscar dark horses, including “Shakespeare in Love,” “Crash” and “Parasite” before “CODA.” And the PGA is the only other major award that uses the Oscars’ ranked-choice system in its marquee category, and it has matched 10 times in the last 13 years and 12 times in the 20 years before that.
So let’s look at the presumed Oscar frontrunners at this point and their best and worst-case scenarios on this all-important awards weekend.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Current status: Presumed frontrunner, with reservations.
Best-case scenario: It wins Producers Guild on Saturday and SAG ensemble on Sunday to give it a formidable trifecta with the Directors Guild Award it already won. And if it wants to rub it in, supporting-actor lock Ke Huy Quan is joined in the SAG winners’ circle when Michelle Yeoh scores an upset over Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis does the same over Angela Bassett or Kerry Condon.
