FINAL 2023 Oscar Nomination Predictions: BEST DIRECTOR

As we get to the end of the long, long phase of Oscar season leading up to the nominations and as it often happens, we go back to the beginning, to first predictions in May 2022 right after Cannes, which brought us potential international director contenders like Ruben Östlund, Park Chan-wook and Edward Berger alongside Steven Spielberg, The Daniels, Todd Field and Martin McDonagh, and now we’re in January 2023 just days before the nominations and a lot of the names have stayed the same.

The critics’ went in deep this year for The Daniels and their March 2022 release Everything Everywhere All At Once, which premiered at 2022 SXSW, dominating wins all season. Field gave chase with his LAFCA win for TÁR, his return to filmmaking after 16 years. NYFCC went for RRR’s S.S. Rajamouli and NSFC gave their directing prize to Charlotte Wells for Aftersun. The Golden Globes went familiar, giving Spielberg his third directing win there. He previously won for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, which he then went on to win Best Director Oscars for both.

BAFTA gave some interesting and exciting scenarios even with the 8-men/8-women director longlist, leaving off James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Östlund, causing prediction havoc. Ultimately, they nominated McDonagh and The Daniels (each the only to hit all precursors this season) plus Park, Field, Berger and Gina Prince-Bythewood. DGA went for McDonagh, The Daniels, Spielberg, Field and Joseph Kosinski, fueling the belief that Top Gun: Maverick is a bigger contender.

James Cameron (Avatar: The Way of Water) and Baz Luhrmann (Elvis) only earned Critics Choice and Golden Globe nods as other elements of their films have taking the spotlight of attention and wins. Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King) has a combined BAFTA and CCA and could be the first ever Black woman director nominated here but is her film strong enough and the push for her strong enough? After a few years of a shifted tide towards women directors being nominated here, we saw the likes of Sarah Polley (Women Talking) fall away (she has a CCA nom in a field of 10) and no others in sight as realistic contenders unless we see some kind of Beasts of the Southern Wild/Behn Zeitlin type of surprise and Charlotte Wells gets in for Aftersun (plus Mescal in Actor and the film in Best Picture), resulting in some shocking snubs a la Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow in the 2012 season. That feels unlikely as Wells, while grabbing nearly all first-time director awards from critics and nominated for the DGA First-Time director, missed directing at the Spirit Awards and BAFTA, both of which should have been within reach.

In looking at Berger, Park, Östlund and S.S. Rajamouli, we’re all now a bit trained to find the ‘international’ director who will get in.

Before that, in the era of five Best Picture nominees, we’d often have what we called ‘the lone director’ nomination; a director who would get nominated when their film was not nominated for Best Picture, like Billy Wilder for Some Like It Hot or Martin Scorsese for The Last Temptation of Christ. It happened twice to both Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho and Rear Window) and David Lynch (Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr.). The phrase itself has always been a bit of a misnomer, implying the Best Director nomination is a film’s only nod and indeed in the case of Lynch, both times it was true. This period these ‘lone directors’ were a combination of respected veterans, auteurs and non-English language film helmers (or a combination of the three), like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini. The directing branch, who votes separately in their category like all branches, often thinks outside the box, outside of the Best Picture norms.

That has held true until the era of the expanded Best Picture lineup that began in 2009. For the next five years, with anywhere from 8-10 Best Picture nominees, there was always a corresponding Best Director for it. Then, 2014’s Foxcatcher earned five Oscar nominations, including writing and two acting nods but also for Bennett Miller’s direction even though the film missed the 8-film lineup. As it was the first time since the expansion that had happened it was glaring, as there were, essentially, three more chances than they’re used to be. Then it happened again with Paweł Pawlikowski 2018’s Cold War but it felt different. Pawlikowski had won Best Director at Cannes and the film was nomination for (the then named) Foreign Language Film Oscar. To its unfortunate timing, he and the film were nominated alongside Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma in that category and in cinematography and directing, losing all three bids to Cuarón. Then two years later, the (now called) International Feature Film frontrunner Another Round, earned Thomas Vinterberg a spot in Best Director without BP. In between there was the breakthrough that was Parasite, the first non-English language film to win the Best Picture Oscar and taking its director, Bong Joon Ho, along with it. Then last season we saw Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car land in Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and win IFF.

So how far will Östlund’s Palme d’Or and European Film Awards wins or Park Chan-wook’s Cannes director win take them? Is there a possibility McDonagh suffers another shocking snub here?

There are 573 members in the Directors Branch (up one from last year), which means it will take 96 votes to secure a nomination.

Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. Here are my final Oscar nomination predictions for Best Director.