Were there even any upsets on Oscar night?
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 3:00PM 
by Danny Cox
Part of the fun of the Oscars are when the winner of the award is not the odds on favorite that had been predicted. Olivia Colman winning over Glenn Close, Parasite taking Picture and Director from 1917, and Anthony Hopkins over Chadwick Boseman all added a sense of surprise and shock to each of their ceremonies. With the uprise of precursor award shows, internet communities dedicated to predicting the awards, and even gambling sites taking odds and providing bets the outcome of the awards tend to be more predictable. Last night’s awards were no exception, with Everything Everywhere All at Once winning 7 of its 11 nominations as pretty much predicted from the outset even though sweeps hadn't yet happened in the Best Picture era. But was everything as predictable as it seems? Were there any moments of surprise and shock? The answer is tricky.
While some of the categories seemed set in stone (Supporting Actor, Animated Film, Visual Effects) there were others with uncertain outcomes...
A few categories had a healthy sense of competition wherein there was the favorite but a strong dark horse (Best Actor, Best Actress, and the two screenplay awards) that had people trying to hedge their bets by going the other way (I am referring to myself at the very least.)
There were three categories though where the winner was a total tossup: Best Score, with no clear favorite outside of maybe Babylon; Best Production Design, which seemed like a chance for past winner Catherine Martin to repeat for Elvis; and Best Supporting Actress, which had a different award winner at almost every major ceremony. These categories definitely offered suspense during the ceremony, but still the winners would hardly qualify as a surprise. Cate Blanchett, Austin Butler, and screenplay wins for Banshees and All Quiet, failed to overthrow the new frontrunners though perhaps the voting was close. In these categories with no clear frontrunner, the Oscars went with the two most popular films overall and ended up giving eleven awards to just two movies. This season fortune favored those predicting sweeps.
When factoring in previous Oscar trends, this year’s other award ceremonies, and the calculated odds the closest to a true upset only came in one category: Best Live Action Short Film. Le pupille, had the highest pedigree in the category. Written and directed by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where Rohrwacher has won two awards for her work before. Le pupille also had backing from Disney, which hosted the film on Disney+ making it readily available, and was produced by four time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuaron. All these factors on top of a broadly appealing film made Le pupille seem like an obvious choice… until the envelope opened.
An Irish Goodbye, the sweet story about two brothers reuniting to finish their mother’s bucket list, took home the statue. That certainly didn't seem likely in a category where most voters opt for the most prominent nominee (the documentary short was a Netflix production and the animated short was produced by JJ Abrams and Bad Robot.)
As Oscar-watching goes, the joy mostly comes from seeing a personal favorite win the award, but there is some joy to an upset, too; when awards get too predictable they risk being boring. The initial excitement for a winner can get stale if they win all the time through each awards show. So, do there need to be less awards? Do the Oscars need to be held earlier so the winner doesn’t seem so obvious? Or should the Oscars try a new system to really shake up the possibilities (like BAFTA’s nominating juries)? Regardless, it was exciting to see at least one genuine upset in a ceremony of favorites taking home the gold. I guess with 11 Oscar nominations, Ireland had to take home something!
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Reader Comments (10)
I predicted AN IRISH GOODBYE. For some reason the shorts categories favor mawkish pap like that. The biggest surprise had to be ALL QUIET for production design. I mean... what?! For trenches? So uninspired.
I have to re-watch All Quiet. The Oscar for best original score was a joy, but production design really confused me. Anyway the joy of the set decorator was so funny
The Production Design win for All Quiet definitely qualifies as an upset; A film with zero precursor wins defeating a frontrunner that swept ADG, BAFTA, and CCA (that would be Babylon) is unheard of. And for as often as they get nominated, war movies rarely win this prize!
This victory is absolutely inspired. Far too often this category has been conflated with "beauty". Thinking it's all just a bunch of mud and dirt and holes in the ground is taking a pretty myopic view of what production design entails.
The biggest surprises for me were costume and production design and they were pleasant ones since I would have voted for them.
Costume Design stunned me. I thought Elvis was pretty much a lock there.
Biggest Surprise: Costume Design, by far.
I was really shocked.
And I still can't believe John Williams didn't win Original Score.
The outcome of the awards seems to be increasingly predictable due to the rise of preceding award events, online communities dedicated to forecasting the awards, and even gambling sites taking odds and offering bets.
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N8-agree. It must had been a bunch of ass work
As others have been said the biggest shockers were below the line in Production Design, Costume Design, and Short Film, but regardless the fact we had so many uncertain races heading in (3 of 4 acting races, adapted screenplay, score, etc) was such a huge improvement on last year where essentially every single race had a clear consensus favorite (with possible exception of Actress) and they all won.
Costume was always a battle, I thought, but production design seemed like a geniune "oh, they're really going there" moment for WESTERN FRONT. Otherwise everything made total sense, even AN IRISH GOODBYE. I can see many knowing there were a lot of Irish nominees and just ticking that box.