The Oscar season is finally here, and the final nominations list featuring all the contenders for the prestigious golden trophy will be unveiled today evening. India has a decent stake in this year’s Academy Awards, considering we have not one, but four Oscar hopefuls, including SS Rajamouli’s RRR, the Gujarati film Chhello Show (The Last Film Show), Shaunak Sen’s documentary feature All That Breathes, and finally, the Netflix documentary The Elephant Whisperers.
Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR, starring Ram Charan and NTR Jr in the lead, is expected to grab multiple nominations thanks to its highly publicised Oscar campaign held all through the latter half of last year and the beginning of 2023. The makers had submitted the film in multiple categories, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. It, however, was not picked as India’s pick for Oscars. India instead sent Chhello Show, which made it to the shortlist in Best International Film category.
RRR song “Naatu Naatu” has already made it to the Oscars shortlist announced earlier. The track even went on to win India’s first Golden Globe in the Best Original Song category earlier this month.
Meanwhile, acclaimed features like The Fabelmans, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Top Gun Maverick, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Avatar: The Way of Water, Aftersun, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery are being pitched as favourites in the Best Picture category. An Oscar nom for Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell and Austin Butler is more or less guaranteed in Best Actor category. Meanwhile, The Daniels, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron among others will be vying for the Best Director trophy, according to early predictions.
The Oscar ceremony will take place on 13 March 2023.
