Oscars 2023: The Best Editing Predictions
Early frontrunners “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” are being challenged by Oscar nominees “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Elvis” and “LIBRARY.”

We’ll be updating all of our Oscar predictions throughout the season, so stay tuned to IndieWire for the latest news on the 2023 Oscar race. The nomination round of voting will run from January 12 to January 17, 2023, and the official Oscar nominations will be announced on January 24, 2023. The final vote will take place between March 2 and 7, 2023. Finally, the 95th Academy Awards will be broadcast. on Sunday, March 12 and live on ABC at 8:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM PT.
Check out our initial thoughts on what to expect at the 95th Academy Awards.
State of the species
“Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “LIBRARY,” “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Top Gun: Maverick” were nominated for the Oscar for Best Film Editing last Tuesday. Each film is also a Best Picture nominee; as for Best Editing as a barometer for the Academy’s top prize, remember that the last time both awards went to the same winner was in 2012, as part of three Oscars for “Argo.” Meanwhile, the nominees for the 73rd Eddie Awards of the American Cinema Editors will be announced on February 1, with the ceremony taking place on March 5 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
The field is led by Oscar winner Mikkel EG Nielsen (“Sound of Metal”) for “The Banshees of Inisherin” and four first-time nominees: Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond (“Elvis”), Paul Rogers (“Everything Everywhere All at”). Once”), Monika Willi (“TÁR”) and Eddie Hamilton (“Top: Gun Maverick”). Four newcomers competed for Best Cut in 2021, with two-time nominee Alan Baumgarten joined by Nielsen, Yorgos Lamprinos (“The Father”), Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Frédéric Thoraval (“A Young Woman of Promise”). ).
This year’s competition is an impressive selection that includes high-flying spectacle (“Maverick”), multi-verse action with a core of family drama and comedy (“EEAAO”), musical carnival ride (“Elvis”), psychological drama. the world of classical music (“TÁR”) and the fusion of melancholy and absurd whimsy (“The Banshees”). It seems that one of the two most egregious works, “Maverick” and “EEAAO”, will be the winner; “Maverick” Hamilton is the vanguard of technical virtuosity. He assembled and cut more than 813 hours of stunning aerial footage (courtesy of the innovative Sony Rialto Camera Extension System overseen by the neglected cinematographer Claudio Miranda), putting audiences inside the cockpits of the Navy jets of Tom Cruise’s Maverick. It was a complex puzzle to build, but the end result played effortlessly, kinetically and emotionally.
For editor Paul Rogers, breaking through the genre-bending “EEAAO” was about finding the emotional connection between Michelle Yeoh’s stressed-out mother and Stephanie Hsu’s rebellious daughter—nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively—who become combatants in Daniels’ maximalist . kung fu epic. The bombastic editing and wild aesthetic decisions were carefully layered on the middle arc by Rogers, who managed to pamper himself with free form and experimentation during the “verse jump”.
Balancing comedy and drama was a far cry from “Sound of Metal” for Nielsen, who also had to deal with the challenge of stepping in after the death of Martin McDonagh’s editor, Jon Gregory. Nielsen’s “dream script” for his role in the escalating feud between estranged drinking buddies Pádraic (Best Actor nominee Colin Farrell) and Colm (Best Supporting Actor nominee Brendan Gleeson) went unnoticed—despite the fact that he immediately adapted the sequences and the material focused. A selection of 1314 edits. Nielsen hoped to help McDonagh search for simplicity within the complexity of this dark tale/Irish Civil War allegory, creating a beautiful and sad breakup story that raises many questions and engages the audience through its characters and sense of the unexpected.
Baz Luhrmann’s hilarious “Elvis” was modeled after “Amadeus,” with Tom Hanks’ slick manager Colonel Parker serving as the unreliable narrator and Best Actor nominee Austin Butler as the legendary self-destructive music superstar. This allowed Villa and Redmond to find creative ways to balance Elvis’ personal story with the musical set pieces, which were treated as action sequences.
For Willi, Todd Field’s “LIBRARY” was a work of high precision. Conductor/composer Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett, a Best Actress favorite) explores the public and private world of great tension and anxiety. This is a cold, calculating dance between subjectivity and reality. The main challenge was to transfer Gustav Mahler’s existing musicality and different tempos into a new film composition. This was achieved through extensive voice work during the editing process, while never losing focus on Lydia and her inescapable demons.
Below is a list of the candidates in order of probability of victory:
“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount)
“Everything Everywhere All at once” (A24)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.)
“LIBRARY” (Focus functions)
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