10 hopes and dreams we have for this year's Oscars nominations

My Favourite Season is a monthly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that runs through the six-month "season" that is both his favourite and Moira Rose's. It explores all things awards in the leadup to the big one: the Oscars, which will take place on March 12, 2023.

It's almost that time: voting for the 95th Academy Award nominations closes today, with the announcement of who made the cut across 24 categories coming very early in the morning on January 24th (5:30am Los Angeles time, a cruel tradition that maybe needs to be reconsidered).

I've made my final predictions, for better or worse. But I'd also like to offer up some good old-fashioned hopes and dreams... even if most of them are unlikely to become realized. So here are 10 things I would love to see happen (and on the extreme off chance you're an Oscar voter reading this with a ballot that's yet to be submitted, consider my pleas).

No movie involving whales gets nominated for best picture

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against actual whales. They're great! But I am not a fan of the two Oscar-contending movies that heavily utilize them, either as a metaphor (The Whale) or literally (Avatar: The Way of Water, though they are called "tulkun" on Pandora).

Directed by Darren Aronofsky and James Cameron, respectively, the two films have sizeable fanbases that will champion them as best picture nominees. I am just not one of them. I found The Whale to be shallow misery porn with some great performances (at best!) and The Way of Water a visually stunning slog with little to be admired in its storytelling.

Give them the nominations they deserve (acting nods for The Whale's Brendan Fraser and Hong Chau; pretty much every technical category for The Way of Water), but let the remarkably deserving likes of, say, Aftersun, Women Talking or Triangle of Sadness take their best picture slots instead.

Only first-timers get nominated in the male acting categories...

A huge moment for Oscar trivia nerds that is highly possible come nomination morning: every single nomination in the male acting categories could go to a first-timer, which hasn't happened in over 90 years.

What's even more wild is that so many of them would be people who certainly seem like they should already have an Oscar nomination. But somehow Colin Farrell, Bill Nighy, Brendan Gleeson, Brendan Fraser, Ke Huy Quan, Ben Whishaw and Paul Dano have all never had the pleasure. Neither have relative newcomers like Austin Butler, Paul Mescal, Jeremy Pope, Brian Tyree Henry and Barry Keoghan. And I hope they end up making up the nominees between them — not just to fulfil my inner Oscar nerd but because they all deserve it more than pretty much anyone who's had a nomination before.

...unless it's Judd Hirsch

I'll glady make one exception to the above wish if Judd Hirsch ends up getting nominated for best supporting actor for his 10-minute turn as a version of Steven Spielberg's granduncle (and a former circus lion tamer!) in The Fabelmans. The screening of the film I was at during the Toronto International Film Festival erupted in applause when Hirsch exited mid-film, and it was entirely warranted: he's incredible in the film.

While Hirsch is a previous Oscar nominee, his first and only nomination came 42 years ago, for 1980's Ordinary People (he lost to his then 20-year-old co-star Timothy Hutton, who — Oscar trivia alert — remains the youngest best supporting actor winner ever). If he's nominated again for Fabelmans, it will break the all-time record for time between nominations (currently held by Henry Fonda, who waited 40 years between his nods for 1941's The Grapes of Wrath and 1981's On Golden Pond).

Aftersun gets a nomination (or five!)

One of my favourite films of 2022 (alongside TÁR and Everything Everywhere All At Once), Charlotte Wells' Aftersun has been doing very well with some critics awards (it swept the Toronto Film Critics' Association Awards earlier this month, of which I was a proud voter). Unfortunately, it remains a bit of a long shot for major Oscar attention.

Starring a devastatingly good Paul Mescal alongside incredible 11-year-old newcomer Frankie Corio as a father and daughter on vacation at Turkish resort in the late 1990s, it would absolutely make my morning if the film gets any of the many nominations it deserves: best actor (Mescal), best original screenplay (Wells), best director (Wells again), best editing (Blair McClendon) and best picture. 

A woman gets nominated for best director

Whether it's Wells or Sarah Polley (Women Talking) or Gina Prince-Blythewood (The Woman King) or Alice Diop (Saint Omer) or Chinonye Chukwu (Till), female directors had an exceptional year in 2022, and not nominating any of them (which seems likely to be the case) would be a truly unfortunate scenario — especially after so much progress seemed to be made in the last few years. I mean, we're coming off two years in a row of women actually winning in the category (Chloe Zhao and Jane Campion, only the second and third women ever to do so). Not nominating any this year (despite so many deserving options) would read very "we've done enough!" despite female-identifying folks, you know, making up half the population.

An openly LGBTQ actor gets nominated

Speaking of potential lost momentum, the Oscars have the chance to nominate several LGBTQ actors this year — a year after they historically made Ariana DeBose the first out queer actor to ever win and only the third to ever be nominated. (They also nominated Kristen Stewart, who was technically the fourth example since her name was called after DeBose's.) 

This time around, Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Ben Whishaw (Women Talking), Janelle Monae (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story) and Jeremy Pope (The Inspection) all offered up worthy work for consideration, though all of them are on the bubble for a nomination. Here's hoping voters at least push one of them in, so the days of entirely straight (at least openly) nominees in acting categories can increasingly feel behind us. 

"Naatu Naatu" crashes the pop queen best original song party on its way to a win

The best original song race is a very star-studded affair, with Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift all making the 15-song shortlist for their contributions to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Top Gun: Maverick and Where The Crawdads Sing, respectively. But here's the thing: their songs aren't that great, especially compared to the absolute bop that is "Naatu Naatu," the Telugu-language song composed by M.M. Keeravani that soundtracks an incredible sequence from the film RRR.

The song just won both the Golden Globe and the Critics' Choice Award in this category, suggesting it's probably a lock for an Oscar nod. But the committee that votes on the nominations in this category has often made some wacky omissions (usually involving snubbing highly worthy songs in favour of whatever Diane Warren wrote that year), which I really hope that doesn't somehow happen to "Naatu Naatu." Because sorry Gaga, if it's nominated... it's winning (the entire Academy votes on the winners).

The entire central quartets of Banshees and Everything Everywhere get nominated

The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All At Once have been dominating much of this awards season so far, and their ensemble casts have been an absolute joy to watch celebrating each other at events. (They all genuinely seem to love each other!)

They also both feature central quartets (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere; Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan for Banshees) in which each member is just as integral to any other in making the film work. So let's not leave any of them out, Oscar voters! 

Andrea Riseborough's last-minute To Leslie "movement" pays off

One of the absolute wildest thing about this awards season has been the out-of-nowhere, seemingly coordinated effort by half of Hollywood's elite to get actress Andrea Riseborough a nomination for her performance in the little-known (until now) indie film To Leslie. Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Jennifer Aniston, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mia Farrow are among the many folks who have utilized their personal social media accounts to tell people to vote for Riseborough.

The move has gotten a ton of attention. And you know what? Riseborough's stunning work in the film is pretty worthy of it. So why not let this friends-of-friends campaign get her a nomination? It's no different than the millions and millions of dollars studios are spending trying to get more famous people nominations. A little shakeup of the system could be good for the Oscars, and Riseborough would be a deserved benefactor.  

The last-minute suggestion that Michelle Williams switches back to supporting does not

If Riseborough does get in, the assumed best actress nominee she's most likely to bump off is probably Michelle Williams, who surprised everyone who cares about these things when she decided to campaign in lead for The Fabelmans. And it hasn't quite worked out: Williams hasn't really won anything so far, and she was even snubbed for a nomination at the SAG Awards.

Now, some are suggesting voters will opt to put her back in supporting (where she arguably belonged in the first place), potentially totally upending that race and threatening the assumed and deserved win of Angela Bassett for Wakanda Forever. To which we say: you made your Oscar bed, Michelle Williams! We love you and your work, but Angela is the rightful owner of that Oscar now. You'll get your chance soon enough.

Check out our final predictions for the 2023 Academy Award nominations here.