As the precursor awards continue unabated until Oscar night, I’m going to be providing a weekly update highlighting the films that have won and lost momentum through the precursor awards (and in some cases other outside influences).

Now that the Oscars have been handed out, let’s look at the big precursor winners & losers.

Big Winners

Everything Everywhere All at Once dominated the precursors and that was borne out by the Oscars where the film claimed numerous awards that it also carried all throughout precursor season.
All Quiet on the Western Front might have come on late in precursor season, but it came on strong. While it didn’t quite reach the BAFTA heights, four awards is nothing to be ashamed of.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was the most dominant animated film of the year and that seemed like a successful portent.
The Whale did modestly during the precursors, but although Brendan Fraser and the makeup work were doing decently, they struggled at times against other adversaries, but ultimately came out on top.

Big Losers

The Banshees of Inisherin was a big precursor player, often coming in just behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, but besting it in terms of precursors for Colin Farrell and Kerry Condon and almost on Original Screenplay, but it whiffed completely, collapsing almost exactly, and certainly more thoroughly, than Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri did.
Elvis was making a solid push in the precursors with Austin Butler, the film’s makeup, and its costume design doing quite well in the precursors, yet it netted a goose egg.
Babylon was not only one of the biggest budget blunders of the year, it was also an Oscar failure. While it was dominant in score and production design categories, it lost both to late-comer All Quiet on the Western Front, proving that Academy members either didn’t like the film or refused to watch it altogether.
Top Gun: Maverick may have won the sound award this year, but it was a huge precursor player not in the Cinematography category and couldn’t even deliver a nomination. Likewise, it was thought to be a solid player for Best Picture and ultimately its failure to get a directing nomination likely did it in.