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).

While we had two major groups announce last week, the real story is the Oscar nominations on Tuesday. Since the Writers Guild of America and Online Film Critics Society looked fairly routine, this week’s winners and losers are entirely associated with the Oscar nominations.

But, before we get into this week’s winners and losers, let’s take a look at what’s coming up this week:

Week 10 (TUE-MON)

Wednesday, Feb. 1 – Cinema Editors (Nominations) (Official)
Thursday, Feb. 2 – Film Music Critics (Nominations) (Unconfirmed)
Sunday, Feb. 5 – London Critics (Awards) (Official)
Sunday, Feb. 5 – Grammy Awards (Awards) (Official)

Big Winners

Everything Everywhere All at Once was the biggest winner. All through precursor season, it maintained a comfortable lead over The Banshees of Inisherin and even managed to pull in a surprise nomination or two. With the double Best Supporting Actress nominations, it was clear the Academy favored the film.
All Quiet on the Western Front might have seemed like it came out of nowhere, but there were signs that it was building acclaim. Precursor season only saw a handful of mentions in the foreign language categories, but it showed up in a handful of guilds. That’s when there were some rumblings of its emergence, but then got a stunning number of citations on the BAFTA longlists, and it seemed almost impossible for the film not to be a contender. Yet, the final confirmation was when it landed the most nominations at BAFTA and from there, it was certain the Academy was going to go for it as well. And it did. Perhaps not as extensively as BAFTA, but it was the second-most nominated film along with the next film on the list of big winners.
The Banshees of Inisherin was the early favorite for critical acclaim even when Everything Everywhere All at Once seemed a bit niche. Even when that film began romping through the precursors, Banshees held its own and has on emerged as one of the films competing to take down Everything in several categories including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress where Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu are going to cannibalize each others’ votes.
Elvis was an early box office success, but with reviews that were solid, not ecstatic, no one was certain it could go all the way, like many of Baz Luhrmann’s post-Moulin Rouge! films. Yet, it was well liked enough that it played surprisingly well during precursor season and came out with a strong 8 nominations.
The Fabelmans held its own through a season that seemed to be dead set against its success. It appeared throughout precursor season, but never seemed to have the groundswell of support that a major Oscar player needs. Then, when it was drubbed at BAFTA, it seemed the film might even lose a Best Directing nomination. In the end, though, it pulled off 7 nominations, which is solid.
Tár was the indie film that kept chugging along when the rest of the above films were rising and falling. Tár has a respectable showing throughout and while it seemed likely to at least pick up Picture, Actress, and Original Screenplay if nothing else, it managed to pick up six total nominations, including surprise nods in Cinematography and Film Editing.
Triangle of Sadness is the last film that was on anyone’s minds. It had a mediocre showing in precursor season and did quite well at BAFTA, but when Dolly De Leon wasn’t read off as a Supporting Actress nominee, the film seemed to have waned at the wrong time, but it pulled out three nominations for Picture, Directing, and Original Screenplay, which is far more than it had any right to lay claim to.

Big Losers

The Woman King was a modest box office success and the film made a handful of appearances during precursor season, but came up empty-handed at the Oscars, scoring nothing, even for Viola Davis who was thought to be a solid fifth place player in Best Actress.
She Said looked to be the year’s Spotlight, a well respected investigative journalism drama looking into the Harvey Weinstein affair. Perhaps it hit a bit too close to home, but the precursors didn’t seem to be supporting it nearly as well as they should have, then it was almost entirely ignored by BAFTA and the Academy then did it one final disservice, not even nominating it for Best Adapted Screenplay, the one place that it had the best shot.
RRR was a precursor darling, winning countless prizes, especially for Best Foreign Language Film and everyone thought that its crowd-pleasing aesthetic would bolster its chances going into the Oscars, but the Academy had other ideas. Category after category announced without a single mention and by the time it got to Best Picture, it had only an Original Song nomination, which meant a Best Picture nomination was unlikely and it failed completely. One nomination is better than the prior two got, but it’s not the landslide excitement the precursors made the race out to be.
Till didn’t have a lot of precursor acclaim. The film was liked, but not loved, but Danielle Deadwyler’s lead performance was thought to be a certain fourth place in the Best Actress slate, but when your film doesn’t get much other attention, even a single Best Actress nomination isn’t a guarantee.
Avatar: The Way of Water may have pulled off four Oscar nominations, but compared to its predecessor, the take was anemic. Sure it got into the Best Picture race, but the Academy overlooked it in several places once thought likely: Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score. Without those three, three craft nominations just doesn’t seem that exciting.