Oscar Gamble: Will It Be a Night for Asian Film?
Odds Favor Asian Film to Dominate the Evening
The Academy loves to host the Oscars with a theme each year. For the 95th Academy Awards, the theme is “Asian night,” if the Academy Awards predictions are anything to go by. Everything Everywhere All at Once, the popular film that meshes comedy, drama, and science fiction, leads the night with 11 nominations. This film, which focuses on the plight of a Chinese-American family, is favored to bring home the biggest awards.
Lock It Up Everything Everywhere All at Once?
As Sunday draws nearer, the online gambling lines for Everything Everywhere All at Once keep getting shorter. The film is the favorite to win the following awards:
| Academy Awards | Moneyline |
| Best Picture | -1500 |
| Best Director | -1600 |
| Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh | -225 |
| Best Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan | -8500 |
| Best Original Screenplay -175 | -175 |
| Best Film Editing | -250 |
If these Academy Awards odds prove accurate, the film will win at least six of its 11 nominations. If Jamie Lee Curtis (+125) also upsets Angela Bassett (-125) for Best Supporting Actress, that will be seven wins for the film that has otherwise won in every major award show in the past few months.
Everything Everywhere All at Once dominated the Critics’ Choice Awards, winning five awards, including Best Picture. It also won a record four Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards and became just the fifth film to sweep the four major guild awards (DGA, PGA, SAG, and WGA). The first four all went on to win Best Picture and all but one won Best Director.
According to IGN’s calculations, Everything Everywhere All At Once has passed The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as the most-awarded movie ever at 158 accolades to 101, and the Oscars haven’t even happened yet! https://t.co/XkOhaCd7Hz pic.twitter.com/EolUSslCrw
— IGN (@IGN) March 10, 2023
Yeoh’s “battle” with Cate Blanchett (-125) is one to keep an eye on. Blanchett was initially the favorite, and Yeoh could have been bet online at a price of +120. But the Malaysian actress has momentum and beat Blanchett at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. The SAG winner has gone on to win Best Actress at the Oscars in eight of the last 10 years.
The film will at least win four awards comfortably, including the Best Picture and Best Director combo. Otherwise, it will be a monumental upset worthy of joining this list.
Best Actor, Most Competitive Awards
Best Actor is one of the few high-profile awards Everything Everywhere All at Once was not nominated for. Instead, this award is going down to the wire between The Whale’s Brendan Fraser (-200) and Elvis’s Austin Butler (Ev). Colin Farrell of The Banshees of Inisherin is a dark horse to win at +1300.
Early Academy Awards picks were divided between the three. But Fraser has jumped to the front thanks to his Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and SAG Awards wins. Previous winners of the latter have won the corresponding Oscar in 18 of the last 21 years.
Fraser made some scathing comments about the awards but also expressed his gratitude about being nominated. His comeback story has made him the fan favorite. However, Austin Butler beat Fraser at the Golden Globes and the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). So you can’t entirely lock this one up for Fraser just yet.
The Whale (-110) and Elvis (-220) are also in a tight race to win Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The latter won at BAFTA, the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, and the AACTA Awards. But The Whale won the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild award, which should weigh heavily with the Academy.
For Best Supporting Actress, Jamie Lee Curtis trails Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Angela Bassett. Curtis won the SAG Award, while Bassett won the Golden Globe. Kerry Condon of The Banshees of Inisherin can upstage the two at odds of +190. She won the BAFTA Award, after all. Given the odds, betting online on either Curtis or Condon at underdog money may be a shrewder choice.
Underdog Power: All Quiet on the Western Front Can Make Noise
Upsets rarely happen during the Oscars, but they tend to capture Academy Awards news. Last year, only two of the 23 awards saw underdogs triumph. But in 2021, as many as six underdogs prevailed. In the 2010s, three underdogs also won Best Picture, with Green Book upsetting Roma in 2019 at odds of +250.
But if All Quiet on the Western Front pulls this off, it may go down as the biggest upset ever at +800. Moonlight upset La La Land in 2017 with lines as long as +650. The remake of the critically-acclaimed war drama dominated at the BAFTA and won Best Film and is tied with The Banshees of Inisherin with the second-most Oscar nods with nine.
Otherwise, the film is heavily favored to win Best International Feature Film (-2200) and Best Cinematography (-700) and is a slight underdog to win Best Adapted Screenplay (+140).
