FINAL 2023 Oscar Nomination Predictions: SOUND

With the two sound guilds – Cinema Audio Society (CAS) and Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) – chiming in with their nominations, plus the BAFTA longlist, we have a very contentious fight for five spots that used to be 10 when this category was split into two.

Four films on the Oscar shortlist for Sound have hit CAS and MPSE plus landed on the BAFTA longlist: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick. For Pinocchio, it landed its CAS nom in the animated section vs live action for the rest. Not a big deal but in the days of sound being editing and mixing categories, animated films often showed up in one or the other, and sometimes both, but as a single category now might prove more difficult.

Everything Everywhere All At Once made a big splash at MPSE with the most nominations (3) but then got blipped by CAS, which has a single category for its live action sound award. Can it find its way into Oscar’s top five ahead of one those contenders? The sound branch loves the sound of war and All Quiet‘s massive performance with the Oscar shortlists and BAFTA probably shouldn’t be ignored. The cacophony of Babylon feels right there too (but why did it miss all categories at MPSE?), or even the aural splendor of the David Bowie doc Moonage Dream. Music docs have gotten in here before and last year’s Documentary Feature winner, the archival concert film Summer of Soul, didn’t even make the shortlist cut.

There are 549 members in the Sound branch, down one from last year, which means it will take 92 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 in Sound.