And the winners of the 2023 Oscars will be: Here are predictions in all 23 categories

When it comes to the 2023 Academy Awards, two things are certain:

First, Will Smith won’t be in attendance after being slapped with a 10-year Oscars ban for assaulting Chris Rock onstage during last year’s telecast. He’s also probably busy tending to the third-degree burns he received last weekend during Rock’s no-holds-barred “Selective Outrage” comedy special/slap-back on Netflix.

And second, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” will win a lot of Oscars. (Although not, perhaps, everything everywhere, and certainly not all at once. More like three and a half hours.)

Beyond that, though, this is a particularly difficult year to predict.

Ordinarily, at least the likely winners of the four acting categories are evident by now, given the wealth of data to be gleaned from the gazillion pre-Oscar award shows. This year, though, those shows were all over the map. Consequently, three of this year’s four acting races are neck-and-neck pick ’ems.

Same goes for best director. Similarly close races can be found up and down the ballot.

That being the case, below find my predictions in all 23 Oscar categories, just in time to help you fill out that Oscar ballot.

The envelopes, please …

Best picture

And the nominees are: “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Fabelmans,” “Tár,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Women Talking.”

Who will win: “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

This felt like a two-horse race for much of award season, pitting “Everything Everywhere” against “The Banshees of Inisherin.” In recent weeks, however, “Everything Everywhere” appears to have distanced itself by taking home the top prizes from the Critics Choice Awards, the Director’s Guild and the Producer’s Guild. That last one is particularly significant, as the PGA – which notably uses the same weird preferential balloting system as the Academy – has seen the winner of its top prize go on to win the Oscar for best picture 23 times in the 33-year history of the PGA award.