A decorative Oscar statue stands near red drapes as final preparations are made for the 95th Academy Awards, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2023. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP)
After several years of declining ratings and the resulting telecast experiments and questions about the Oscars' relevance, the 95th Academy Awards will have an unfamiliar advantage during Sunday's ceremony: box office clout.
For a show that has often trended toward art-house fare, the presence of such theatrical juggernauts as "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" in the best picture race may restore a bigger audience.
And back is a solo host - Jimmy Kimmel, for a third stint - and the appointment of sturdy awards show veterans Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss as producers, with Weiss directing for the eighth consecutive year.
They'll be charged with steering a ceremony one year removed from Will Smith's slap of presenter Chris Rock and Smith's subsequent 10-year ban from attending the Oscars.
Will a more populist best picture field boost the ratings? Can the ceremony restore some dignity after the slap? How will the return to a solo host shape the show? We'll learn those answers soon enough, but in the meantime, here's a rundown of what we know about the 2023 Academy Awards.
When and where are the Oscars happening?
The Oscars will be held at 8 p.m. Eastern time Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The ceremony will again be broadcast on ABC and streamed on ABC.com, the ABC app, YouTube TV, Hulu Plus Live TV, DirecTV Stream and FuboTV.
The Dolby Theatre has hosted every Oscars since 2002, with the exception of the scaled-down 2021 ceremony, which was held at Los Angeles's Union Station because of the pandemic.
Who is hosting?
The Academy spent the past few years experimenting with various hosting arrangements, including simply not having one from 2019 to 2021 and deploying Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall as a trio of co-hosts last year.
Now, it's back to having a traditional solo emcee, and it's a familiar face as Kimmel hosted the 2017 and 2018 ceremonies. He's fairly seasoned at the job, having also hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times.
"It wasn't one of those situations where they couldn't get anybody and they asked me at the last minute - I definitely would have said no if that was the case," Kimmel told the Hollywood Reporter. "So, I don't know, it kind of came out of the blue and they clearly got me at the right moment."
Kimmel's first show hosting included the envelope debacle in which "La La Land" was incorrectly announced as best picture instead of the actual winner, "Moonlight."
The "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" star returned a year later, when "The Shape of Water" claimed the top prize, and he'll now join Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin, Conrad Nagel and David Niven as three-time Oscar hosts. (Only Jack Lemmon, Whoopi Goldberg, Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal and 19-time host Bob Hope have overseen more ceremonies.)
What is different about this year's nominees - and why does it matter?
The Oscars rarely recognize films that permeate pop culture at large, which led the Academy to expand the number of best picture nominees in 2010 in hopes of nominating more blockbusters and, the logic goes, attracting a bigger audience. Usually, though, it just nominated more art fare - which didn't help increase viewership.
The pandemic's punishing impact on the theatrical movie business also didn't help. Although last year's average of 16.62 million viewers marked an uptick from 2021's coronavirus-affected Oscars ceremony, it was a far cry from a viewership that hovered around 25 million before the pandemic.
Finally, this year, four best picture nominees cracked $100 million at the box office: "Everything Everywhere All at Once," "Elvis," "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water." In fact, "Maverick" and "The Way of Water" are among the top 10 highest grossing films of all time at the domestic box office, the latter being the third-highest-grossing movie in Hollywood history (not accounting for inflation).
Globally, the two movies have combined to earn $3.7 billion.
How are the nominees chosen? Who votes?
The Oscar nominations are mostly chosen by members of each category's corresponding branch of the Academy. Actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors, and so on. The most notable exception is best picture, whose nominees are decided by all voting members of the Academy.
The Academy's entire voting membership - around 10,000 people - then decides the winners in all 23 categories. For 22 of those awards, the nominee with the most votes wins. But best picture is again the exception: The night's biggest prize is decided via a preferential ballot in which voters rank the nominees.
If no movie earns more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, the film sitting in last place is eliminated. The No. 2 movie on any ballot listing the eliminated movie at No. 1 then earns that ballot's vote. The process repeats, eliminating the movie with the fewest votes, until one film has a majority.
Which films are the front-runners for best picture?
"Everything Everywhere All at Once," Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's absurdist action-comedy about an immigrant mother traversing the multiverse, has emerged as the best picture front-runner after leading the Oscars with 11 nominations and claiming the top prizes from the Critics Choice Awards, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards.
But the German antiwar epic "All Quiet on the Western Front" snagged best picture at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), which can be a telling Oscars precursor. "All Quiet" filmmaker Edward Berger wasn't nominated for the best director Oscar, but as "CODA" and "Green Book" have proved, a director nomination isn't necessarily a prerequisite to winning best picture.
Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" and Martin McDonagh's "The Banshees of Inisherin" looked like top contenders earlier in awards season, when they won the best picture prizes at the Golden Globes and joined "Everything Everywhere" as the only films to be nominated for the top honors from all of the major guilds.
But they seem to have lost steam after not winning much since. Still, both showed well on Oscar nominations morning: "Banshees" tied "All Quiet" for second with nine nominations, and "The Fabelmans" notched an impressive seven nods.
There's also a case to be made for "Top Gun: Maverick," which picked up six nominations, including a surprise nod for adapted screenplay. The movie is the kind of crowd-pleaser that could benefit from the Oscars' ranked-choice voting system, which hinders more polarizing films and gives an edge to consensus favorites.
Who are the acting award front-runners?
"Everything Everywhere's" Ke Huy Quan is widely considered to be the strongest front-runner. The onetime child star, who recently resumed acting after nearly two decades, has swept the supporting actor category throughout awards season - aside from a loss to "Banshees" actor Barry Keoghan at the BAFTAs.
Otherwise, every acting Oscar seems to be up in the air. Best supporting actress looks like a three-woman race featuring Golden Globe and Critics Choice winner Angela Bassett ("Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), BAFTA winner Kerry Condon ("The Banshees of Inisherin") and SAG winner Jamie Lee Curtis ("Everything Everywhere All at Once").
"Elvis" star Austin Butler took best actor at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, while "The Whale's" Brendan Fraser won at the Critics Choice and SAG ceremonies.
And "Tár's" Cate Blanchett looked like the best actress front-runner after triumphing at the Critics Choice Awards and BAFTAs, before "Everything Everywhere" star Michelle Yeoh shook up the race with wins from SAG and the Spirit Awards.
Where can I watch the best picture nominees?
Most of the 10 best picture nominees are streaming, with "All Quiet on the Western Front" on Netflix, "Everything Everywhere All at Once" on Showtime, "Tár" on Peacock, "Top Gun: Maverick" on Paramount Plus, and "The Banshees of Inisherin" and "Elvis" on HBO Max.
"The Fabelmans," "Triangle of Sadness" and "Women Talking," meanwhile, are available to rent via services such as Apple TV, Prime Video and YouTube.
"Avatar: The Way of Water" is still in theaters.
What changes have been made to the telecast?
If anything, this year's broadcast will feel more traditional than those from the past few years, which were filled with small (often poorly received) experiments.
A year after the Oscars taped eight categories and edited those winners' speeches into the broadcast, which led to much online protest, Academy CEO Bill Kramer told Variety that all 23 categories will again be included in the live telecast.
"We are committed to having a show that celebrates the artisans, the arts and sciences and the collaborative nature of moviemaking," he said. "This is very much what the mission of the Academy is."
Also gone is last year's widely mocked experiment in which Twitter polls determined the winners of two unofficial categories - #OscarsCheersMoment and #OscarsFanFavorite (won by "Zack Snyder's Justice League" and "Army of the Dead," respectively). And after Smith marched onstage and struck Rock during last year's ceremony, Kramer said, the Academy has hired a crisis team to deal with any on-air incidents.
"We've run many scenarios," Kramer told Time. "So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now, but that we're planning for just in case it does happen."
Will there be musical performances?
The Academy announced that four of the five best original song nominees will be performed during the telecast: Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will perform "Naatu Naatu" from "RRR"; David Byrne, Son Lux and Stephanie Hsu will perform "This Is a Life" from "Everything Everywhere All at Once"; Diane Warren and Sofia Carson will perform "Applause" from "Tell It Like a Woman"; and Rihanna will perform "Lift Me Up" from "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."
Lenny Kravitz will deliver the In Memoriam performance.
"Hold My Hand," the "Top Gun: Maverick" tune penned by Lady Gaga and BloodPop, is the only original song nominee that will not be performed at the ceremony, the Academy confirmed Wednesday.
Is there a red carpet?
Ashley Graham, Vanessa Hudgens and Lilly Singh will co-host ABC's "Countdown to the Oscars" from the Dolby Theatre red carpet at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday. Earlier in the day, Linsey Davis and Whit Johnson will co-host "On the Red Carpet Live: Countdown to Oscars 95" from 1 to 4 p.m.
Over on E!, "Countdown to the Red Carpet" will begin at 3 p.m. Eastern time, followed by "Live From the Red Carpet" at 5 p.m. and "Red Carpet Rundown" at 7 p.m.
