Even though voting for The Academy Awards doesn’t begin until March 2nd, we’re still in the thick of awards season, and a lot has happened since nominations were announced in late January. To try and make sense of it all, I decided to take a look at some recent results from the “precursor” ceremonies to determine whose metaphorical stock is rising or falling as Academy members prepare to cast their ballots. Momentum is everything in an Oscar race – there’s a good chance that CODA doesn’t pull off its Best Picture upset over The Power of the Dog without its late wins at the SAGs and/or Jane Campion’s awkward Critics’ Choice Awards speech – so while the voters from some of these early ceremonies don’t necessarily overlap with Oscar voters, they still play a role in shaping the race and building buzz. So who did the BAFTAs, CCAs, and DGAs hurt or help? Read on to find out.

Stock Up: All Quiet on the Western Front

Before the BAFTAs aired on Sunday, three major televised awards for Best Picture were given out: The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin won the respective drama and comedy/musical awards at the Golden Globes, while Everything Everywhere All at Once came through at the Critics’ Choice Awards. Any one of that trio would have been a solid pick to win Best Film award at the BAFTAs – and yet none of them did so. Instead, the British Academy decided to bestow their highest honor on Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, making it the second straight Netflix distributed film to come away with the award. In fact, the German film turned out to be the biggest winner of the night, taking home a total of seven trophies for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Not in English, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound.

So, does this make All Quiet on the Western Front the new front runner for Best Picture? Probably not – unlike the BAFTAs, the Oscars didn’t nominate Berger for Best Director, an especially bad sign consider the Directors’ branch of the Academy has been particularly amenable to foreign directors in recent years (Triangle of Sadness’ Ruben Östlund, a Swede, received the token non-English speaker nomination instead, albeit for a movie that’s primarily in English). Add in the fact that only four of the last ten BAFTA Best Film winners have also won Best Picture, and it becomes even harder to make the case that All Quiet will pull off the upset come March. But its success in the below the line categories at the BAFTAs could be replicated at the Oscars, even as it faces tough competition from big blockbuster spectacles like Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water in some of the more technical categories.

But if there is one Oscar (outside of Best International Film, which it’s almost guaranteed to win) you should probably put some money down on All Quiet winning, it’s Best Adapted Screenplay. While Berger and co-writers Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson have received some criticism for excluding key parts of the canonized anti-war novel from their script, the rest of the field is weak, sporting only two other Best Picture nominees (Women Talking, which is only nominated for Screenplay and Picture, and Top Gun: Maverick, whose nomination in this category was considered a surprise and a stretch by many) and two happy-to-be-there longshots (Rian Johnson’s popular but polarizing Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and adaptation-of-an-adaptation Living). Add in the story’s newfound relevance, especially among European voters, and you have a new favorite in this category, and a film that, even if it may not win the marquee prize, could still end up as your awards leader by the end of the night.

Stock Down: The Inevitability of Everything Everywhere All at Once

Despite winning only one award at the Golden Globes (Best Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s zany, frenetic wuxia/sci-fi mash up Everything Everywhere All at Once has been considered something of an early favorite for Best Picture by virtue of its 11 total nominations and a bevy of online buzz and enthusiasm. The case for the film’s eventual victory was bolstered by its five wins at the Critics’ Choice Award (including victories for Picture, Director, and Screenplay) and Kwan’s and Scheinert’s triumphs at the Directors Guild of America awards. While it’s true that the CCA voting body has little to no overlap with that of the Academy, and the directors are but one voting bloc of many at the Oscars, fostering such enthusiasm early on is never a bad thing, and seemed to signal that Everything Everywhere All at Once was headed for what could be a dominant Oscar night showing.

And then the BAFTAs happened. Despite being nominated for ten awards by the British Academy (tied for second-most with The Banshees of Inisherin), Everything Everywhere All at Once would come home with only one, for Best Editing, while getting shut out in higher profile categories like Director, Original Screenplay and – most surprisingly – Best Supporting Actor. Now, there are probably some geographic/national biases at play that made wins for Everything Everywhere less likely in some of those categories than they will be at the Oscars (more on that later), but the inevitable feeling of victory that had radiated from this film since the Oscar nominations were announced has begun to dissipate a bit, allowing other contenders like Banshees, The Fabelmans, and even the aforementioned All Quiet on the Western Front nab some of the spotlight. Of course, this could all change after the Screen Actors’ Guild, who make up the largest voting bloc of the Academy, hand out their awards this Sunday, and Everything Everywhere should still probably be considered the odds on favorite to win Best Picture. But it’s no longer a sure thing, and longer shot wins for the film, like Michelle Yeoh’s bid for Best Actress, could now be completely off the table. A few weeks ago, Best Picture looked like it was going to be a coronation. Instead, it’s turned into a real race. 

Stock Up: Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon’s upset bids

Until this weekend, Ke Huy Quan of Everything Everywhere All at Once and Angela Bassett of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, two Hollywood veterans with very different career arcs, seemed like the respective frontrunners for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. They both won at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards, and both of their stories are too good to pass up: Quan, an actor whose career stalled after memorable childhood roles in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and The Goonies, was finally getting his due, while Bassett, a past nominee, would end a career-long Oscar drought. This still may be how things play out, but like Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Best Picture campaign, the inevitability of Quan and Bassett’s victories took a hit at the BAFTAs when they both lost out to The Banshees of Inisherin’s Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, both of whom they’ll have to face off against again at the SAGs and the Oscars.

Keoghan and Condon’s wins were surprising, but not entirely shocking – The Banshees of Inisherin is a British/Irish/American co-production, and the BAFTAs have always shown a bit of favoritism towards films and actors that originate on their side of the Atlantic (Banshees also wound up winning the award for Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay). While British and Irish voters make up a smaller piece of the Oscar-voting pie, Banshees is still the second most nominated film of the ceremony, and further upsets at the SAGs could keep Keoghan and/or Condon fresh in voters’ minds. As I said about Everything Everywhere All at Once, Quan and Bassett are still the favorites – but an upset in their categories looks much more likely now than it did after the Globes.

Stock Down: Colin Farrell and Brendon Fraser as Best Actor Contenders

Austin Butler’s performance in Elvis feels tailor-made for an Oscar. Not only did he portray one of the most iconic figures of the 20th Century, but he had to sing, dance, and put on a rather convincing accent that he may or may not have still been using when he received his Golden Globe back in January. But despite all of that, the Oscar race for Best Actor seemed like it could at least be competitive. Brendon Fraser, a once-maligned actor in the midst of a career renaissance, won the Critics’ Choice Award over Butler for The Whale, and Colin Farrell, who won the Golden Globe Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical for The Banshees of Inisherin, also seemed like a realistic possibility to win come Oscar night. Sure, Fraser has faded down the stretch a bit (The Whale received two nominations from the Academy, one for Fraser and the other for his co-star Hong Chau), but a home-cooking win for Farrell at the BAFTAs would at least leave this category as an open question before we moved into the SAGS and eventually the Academy Awards.
Or maybe not. Unlike Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, Farrell did not benefit from Banshees’ British and Irish roots. Instead, Butler wound up with the BAFTA instead, establishing him as the clear favorite for the Oscar and all but dashing Farrell or Fraser’s hopes of pulling off an upset. Ostensibly, either of them could beat Butler at the SAGs – but the lack of enthusiasm for The Whale and Farrell’s inability to win in a more friendly environment seem to indicate a likely Butler win at the Oscars. Never underestimate the Oscar-baiting power of playing a rock star beloved by old people. Unless you’re Taron Egerton, that is.