These are our 2023 Oscar predictions for Best Editing and Best Cinematography, part of a series on this year’s awards. Check out full predictions in all Oscar categories.

Best Editing

• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Elvis
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Tár
• Top Gun: Maverick

Will Win: Everything Everywhere

Could Win: Elvis

Dark Horse: Top Gun: Maverick

The craft categories this year are going to be quite hard to predict. There are a lot of sound choices in most of these categories, making it hard to determine how firmly situated the front-runners actually are.

In terms of Best Editing, all five of these films are good enough to take it (except maybe Tár, just given its draft stock – I’m kind of surprised All Quiet didn’t nudge Tár out in this category, to be honest). Everything Everywhere being the overall Oscar favorite this year should help it, especially considering how central the editing is to its story (in terms of jumping between realities and temporalities, etc.). I would be happy with Everything taking this – it wasn’t my favorite movie of the year, but its editing is one of its strongest suits. Paul Rogers deserves it.

Elvis fits into a framework for this award. Bohemian Rhapsody won this award, in spite of the memes that criticize that film’s editing specifically. Elvis is, I would argue, a better movie than Rhapsody, and I think its overall Oscar stock is higher than that film’s was. I could see it winning here.

If not these two, Top Gun: Maverick is a fan favorite pick whose editing is integral to how that movie is paced. The dogfight set pieces rely on this editing to be exciting. Academy voters may also just want to recognize Top Gun and its hand in keeping the theatrical market afloat; this is one category where it could choose to do so.

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Best Cinematography

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Bardo
• Elvis
• Empire of Light
• Tár

Will Win: All Quiet on the Western Front

Could Win: Empire of Light

Dark Horse: Elvis

While I would love to see Tar take this, it doesn’t appear to be in the cards. It doesn’t have the most ostentatious of camerawork out of the lot. Bardo, too, is an Oscar nonstarter. We could say the same about Empire of Light, a film which came and went without any fanfare and has received very little awards season attention. And yet, we’re working with Roger Deakins here, and even those who didn’t love the film still spoke kindly of its cinematography. Personally, I think, as far as Deakins’ career is concerned, it isn’t top tier. But I can understand the sentiment.

Empire of Light may be a longshot, but I think it contends better than Elvis. What Elvis has going for it, obviously, is that it is up for a number of awards and is clearly well-liked across the Academy membership.

When all is said and done, though, All Quiet stands out among these five (really, I think this is a weird five and this category more than most others has a serious snub problem). No matter how well the film does on Oscar night (it is hard to tell just how many awards it will win), this appears to be one the surest locks. Cinematography is so central to what works about this film. That’s coming from a guy who really didn’t like the film all that much.

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Twitter, Letterboxd, Facebook)