FINAL 2023 Oscar Nomination Predictions: CINEMATOGRAPHY

Only Empire of Light and Top Gun: Maverick rise to the top, earning nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), Critics’ Choice and hitting BAFTA.

For Empire of Light, Roger Deakins is the most-nominated living cinematographer with 15 nominations (sometimes the only nomination for his film) and two wins, and easier to pencil than most. Quite of nowhere, Top Gun: Maverick became the runaway critics’ winner this season with 17 awards, including NBR (also their Best Film winner) and NYFCC, for Claudio Miranda.

Hoyte van Hoytema’s work on Nope garnered some critics’ notices but overall the awards response to the film has been largely muted, missing the Oscar Sound shortlist (although it did make it in for Score). As a previous nominee in one of the many branches that loves to continue recognizing the same people, he still has somewhat of a shot.

Oscar winner Greig Fraser’s work on The Batman and Darius Khondji’s for Bardo earned noms from ASC, while Fraser also ended up on the BAFTA longlist. Oscar winner Linus Sandgren (La La Land) found himself on the BAFTA longlist and Critics’ Choice for Babylon, as did Camerimage winner Florian Hoffmeister for TÁR. There might be an outside chance for Michal Dymek’s lensing of the donkey fable EO, which won him prizes with LAFCA and NSFC. Missing from the ASC top 5 was Larkin Seiple’s work on the Oscar frontrunner Everything Everywhere All At Once. Not that he was really expected to show up but after missing both CCA and the BAFTA longlist, for a visual and technical film (and a BP frontrunner) it’s a bit strange that it’s largely been blanked on here.

Only two women have ever been nominated here; Rachel Morrison for 2017’s Mudbound and Ari Wegner for 2021’s The Power of the Dog, neither won. This year, Mandy Walker (Elvis), nominated by the ASC, is the best chance to make it three but someone might in the way of that – Janusz Kaminski with The Fabelmans. A six-time Oscar nominee (and two-time winner) for Steven Spielberg projects, Kaminski missed ASC last year for West Side Story and got an Oscar nomination without it. Trouble is, not only did he miss ASC, he missed the BAFTA longlist too, only giving him Critics’ Choice as a lifeline. To date, he’s never made it the Oscar top five missing both ASC and BAFTA. Along with Kaminski, what happened to Russell Carpenter and Avatar: The Way of Water? Mauro Fiore won for the first film, considered a visual breakthrough (he was the first nominee and winner for a film shot entirely on digital video), and a wave he rode to the Academy Awards. But for the sequel, Carpenter, a sweeping winner for Cameron’s Titanic, missed both ASC and the BAFTA longlist.

The Cinematography branch currently has 290 members, the same as last year. It will take 49 votes to secure a nomination.

Oscar nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24. Here are my final 2023 Oscar nomination predictions for Cinematography.