2023 Oscar Predictions: SOUND (November)

On December 21, the Academy will reveal the shortlist of 10 contenders who will be eligible to compete for a nomination for Sound, which remains a single category that combines the sound editing and sound mixing of a film. Dune easily triumphed here last year after winning at the Cinema Audio Society (CAS), the top precursor for the Oscar sound category from Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018, Ford v Ferrari in 2019 and Sound of Metal in 2020, along with, but a bit less so, the MPSE – Motion Picture Sound Editors guild.

As I mentioned in my Film Editing predictions, the close connection to the two categories is evident. For the last nine years, the same film has won both (or at least one of the sound awards when there were two) and with the exception of the tie is sound editing in 2012 (where Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty both won but only ZDT was BP-nominated), the sound winner for the last 13 years was also nominated for Best Picture, regardless of the number of BP nominees. That said, it’s not crucial for an eventual Best Picture winner to secure a nomination here first, as the last four years in a row prove. It certainly doesn’t hurt though.

As I mentioned in last month’s sound predictions, re-recording sound mixer Andy Nelson is the question mark here. His work with Steven Spielberg has worked out very well for him, Oscar nomination-wise, where’s he’s gotten in for 2015’s Bridge of Spies, 2012’s Lincoln, 2011’s War Horse, 2006’s War of the Worlds, 1998’s Saving Private Ryan (where he won), 1993’s Schindler’s List and most recently, 2021’s West Side Story. The breadth of these nominations span the time when Sound was a single category, then split into two, and then back to one. Is there enough action in The Fabelmans to notch him a 23rd nomination? Between the train sequence at the beginning and the recreations of Spielberg’s ‘home’ movies growing up, there just might be. But Nelson will have no bigger competitor than himself, where he’s in contention with  Babylon, The Batman and Elvis, much bigger sound films.

The Cinema Audio Society (CAS) and Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) will have their say with nominations on January 10 and January 9, respectively, ahead of Oscar nominations on January 24.

Here are my 2023 Oscar predictions in Sound for November.

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new entry ♦

1. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures)
2. Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios)
3. Elvis (Warner Bros) ↑
4. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Walt Disney/Marvel Studios) ↓
5. The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures) ↑

6. The Batman (Warner Bros) ↓
7. All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
8. Babylon (Paramount Pictures)
9. The Woman King (Sony/TriStar) ↑
10. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)

Other contenders (alphabetical)

The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures)
Bardo, or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Netflix)
Emancipation (Apple Original Films) ♦
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Sony/TriStar Pictures)
Nope (Universal Pictures)
The Northman (Focus Features)
RRR (Variance Films)
TÁR (Focus Features) ↓
Thirteen Lives (Amazon Studios)
Triangle of Sadness (NEON)
White Noise (Netflix)

Photo: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures