Think you know who’ll win an Oscar? These are the dark horses to watch

Snapshot

• The race for the 95th Academy Awards is getting serious ahead of voting beginning on March 2.
• While Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s Everything Everywhere All At Once is favourite to win best film from The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick, the seven BAFTA wins by All Quiet On The Western Front has boosted its chances. 
• Other potential dark horses include Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie) for best actress, Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) for best supporting actress, Barry Keoghan (also for The Banshees of Inisherin) for best supporting actor and Navalny for best documentary. 

Leading into last year’s Academy Awards, there was a strong sense that The Power of the Dog would win the top prize. But a late swing to the much lower-profile CODA showed that nothing is set in stone during voting for the Oscars.

Jane Campion’s masterful western won best director but best picture went to a warm-hearted film that had been streaming with little fanfare for months until it started winning awards.

Felix Kammerer in All Quiet On The Western Front.Credit:Reiner Bajo/Netflix

While there are clear favourites in many categories for this year’s Oscars, being held on March 13 AEST, some dark horses have emerged and could shake the race up.

All Quiet On The Western Front

Like CODA on Apple TV last year, this visceral German-language anti-war drama was launched with little promotion on Netflix.

Hollywood pundits initially thought that if Netflix was going to get a nomination for best picture it would surely be one of the films from big-name directors it was pushing: Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Bardo, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise or Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

But when little-known Edward Berger’s All Quiet led the nominations for the British Academy Awards (BAFTAs), the latest adaptation of a classic German novel by Erich Maria Remarque started being taken seriously.

It has since landed nine Oscar nominations and, just this week, won best picture, director and five other awards at the BAFTAs.

Why it might win: While the favourite to win best picture is Everything Everywhere All At Once there’s a more wide-open field than usual, including The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick. And All Quiet has momentum.

Why it won’t: BAFTA voters would have been especially receptive to a drama about the horrors of war given their closeness to Ukraine. And in Oscars history, Parasite is the only foreign-language film to win best picture.

But even if All Quiet does not take the top prize, it is the hot tip to win best international film and is a more serious contender for best adapted screenplay, cinematography, production design, make-up and hair, original score and sound.

Up for best actress at the Oscars … Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie.Credit:Momentum Pictures

Andrea Riseborough

Before Riseborough’s surprise best actress nomination for the ultra-low-budget drama To Leslie, Kate Winslet called it “the greatest female performance on screen I have ever seen in my life”. But the widespread view is that Cate Blanchett will win for Tar, though there will be support for Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere) as a popular veteran who has paid her dues and overcome Hollywood racism.

Why she might win: Riseborough is genuinely brilliant. And if enough Oscar voters agree with the glowing endorsement of Winslet and the other Hollywood stars who campaigned for her – and if voting is split between Blanchett and Yeoh – she has a chance.

Why she won’t: The controversy about a white actress taking a nomination from a black actress – either Viola Davis (The Woman King) or Danielle Deadwyler (Till) – after a campaign led by other white actresses and actors makes a vote for Riseborough uncomfortably political. And Blanchett is exceptional.

Kerry Condon at the BAFTA awards, where she won best supporting actress for The Banshees of Inisherin.Credit:Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP

Kerry Condon

The Irish actress, who plays the stoic sister of Padraic (Colin Farrell) in The Banshees of Inisherin, is nominated for best supporting actress at the Oscars. The hot favourite is Angela Bassett, who played the grieving Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Why she might win: While it was a home crowd, Condon beat Bassett at the BAFTAs.

Why she won’t: Bassett is almost certain win as much for a stellar career that dates back to Boyz N The Hood, Malcolm X, What’s Love Got To Do With It and How Stella Got Her Groove Back as for her regal grace in two Black Panther films. Voting for Condon, who did herself no favours at the BAFTAs by thanking her horses and dogs, would be a step back into #OscarsSoWhite territory.

Colin Farrell, left, and Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin.Credit:Searchlight

Barry Keoghan

The Irish actor plays a simple-minded youth, Dominic, who pines for love in The Banshees of Inisherin. He became a dark horse for best supporting actor at the Oscars when he won at the BAFTAs.

Why he might win: Keoghan has a compelling narrative that will appeal to voters: he has succeeded after a difficult upbringing that included living with his brother in 13 foster homes after their drug-addicted mother died.

Why he won’t: The favourite for the award has an even more compelling narrative: Ke Huy Quan, who plays three versions of Waymond in Everything Everywhere, went from childhood fame as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to facing Hollywood racism and being forced out of acting until the directors of Everything Everywhere discovered him on Twitter. He also has an indelible moment in the movie (“in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you”) and would have shored up support with a heartwarming speech when he won at the Golden Globes.

Navalny

In a strong field of best documentary nominees at the Oscars, many Hollywood pundits are predicting wins for either All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, about an activist confronting America’s opioid epidemic, Fire of Love, about two daring French vulcanologists, or All That Breathes, about two Indian brothers who rescue injured black kites.

Alexei Navalny gets a Russian agent to reveal in a phone call details of the plot to poison him in Daniel Roher’s documentary Nalvany.Credit:Madman

Why it might win: Daniel Roher’s documentary tells a staggering story about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny tricking the country’s spies into revealing details of the 2020 plot to poison him. It beat its main Oscar rivals at the BAFTAs. And voting for it at the Oscars would be a slap in the face for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Why it won’t: The competition is equally deserving.

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Email Garry Maddox at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.

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