AARP’s Oscar Predictions: Who’s Going to Win Gold This Sunday?

In an awards season ruled by grownups, our critic picks the winners, as well as the ones we're rooting for

Tim Appelo,

AARP

En español

Published March 10, 2023

from top left judd hirsch then bill nighy then michelle yeoh from bottom left angela bassett then cate blanchett then brendan gleeson

Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment / Storyteller Distribution Co., LLC. / Ross Ferguson/Sony Pictures Classics / A24 / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Focus Features / Jonathan Hession/20th Century Studios

It’s a great Oscar year, not only for grownup movie fans but actors over 50, who nabbed nine out of 20 acting nominations. Better yet, several are getting their first honors at an age when Hollywood used to put actors out to pasture.

Who does our critic predict will win big Sunday night at the 95th Academy Awards? And who should win? Check out all the top award predictions below, and let us know your predictions in the comments!

Michelle Yeoh in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.'

A24

Best picture

What will win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

The smart money is on Everything, since it won the most precursor awards this season, and everybody everywhere is in love with the late-in-life success stories of stars Michelle Yeoh (60), Ke Huy Quan (51) and Jamie Lee Curtis (64). Dark horse mention: All Quiet on the Western Front is getting late-blooming buzz, but it will probably have to be content with winning best international feature and adapted screenplay.

What should win: Top Gun: Maverick

All 10 best picture nominees are perfectly deserving of a grownup’s vote — and all owe their success considerably to older audiences and their good taste. But at the Oscar nominees luncheon, even Steven Spielberg, director of rival best picture nominee The Fabelmans, told Top Gun star Tom Cruise that his massive, exhilarating hit “saved Hollywood’s [derriere],” luring viewers (particularly older ones) back to theaters. It won AARP’s Movies for Grownups Award for best picture.

Brendan Fraser in 'The Whale.'

A24

Best actor

Who will win: Austin Butler, the world’s unimaginably greatest Elvis impersonator, in Elvis, which became a hit largely thanks to older viewers — 29 percent of its audience was over 55.

Who should win: It’s a toss-up. Brendan Fraser (54) sears the soul in an utterly fearless performance as a tormented writing teacher in The Whale, and he could win the Oscar. But in Living, Bill Nighy (73), breaking out from character actor to lead, is still more impressive as another dying man — a repressed 1950s London bureaucrat — trying to put his life right before it’s all over.

Cate Blanchett in 'Tár.'

Focus Features

Best actress

Who will win: Cate Blanchett (53) already has two Oscars and is likely to score her third for her intense performance as an ill-tempered genius conductor with feet of clay in Tár.

Who should win: A tough call: As scary-great as Blanchett is, Michelle Yeoh is infinitely more fun as an ordinary Chinese American immigrant laundromat owner in Everything Everywhere All at Once who saves herself and the world by leaping among parallel universes with martial-arts aplomb.

left jaime lee curtis right michelle yeoh in everything everywhere all at once

Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.'

A24

Best supporting actress

Who will win: Jamie Lee Curtis as an IRS agent persecuting Michelle Yeoh’s character in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Curtis will get a run for her money from Angela Bassett (64), every inch the grieving queen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But Oscar voters are usually snobbish about Marvel superhero movies, so look for Curtis to snag the statue.

Who should win: Curtis, who slayed with her speech accepting the Career Achievement Award at this year’s AARP Movies for Grownups Awards.

Ke Huy Quan in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once.'

A24

Best supporting actor

Who will win: About the surest bet this Oscar season is Ke Huy Quan, who has swept many of the year’s other high-profile acting awards as Michelle Yeoh’s meek husband (and in a parallel universe, a much hunkier heroic helper) in Everything Everywhere All at Once. No way can Academy voters resist his story: A prize-winning child actor in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, his career was doomed after puberty — until he roared back to fame decades later in the smartest, funniest multiverse movie yet. He’s earned 93 honors for his stunning comeback role — what’s one more?

Brendan Gleeson in 'The Banshees of Inisherin.'

Jonathan Hession/20th Century Studios

Who should win: We wouldn’t mind if Brendan Gleeson (67) won as Colin Farrell’s inexplicably irascible ex-best friend in The Banshees of Inisherin, or Judd Hirsch (87) as the eccentric uncle who warns the teen auteur hero of The Fabelmans about what his cinematic gift will cost him in life: “Art will give you crowns in heaven and laurels on Earth, but it will tear your heart out.”

Who do you think will win — or should win?

In the comments section below, give us your thoughts on the Oscars this Sunday. And when the Oscar telecast ends, read about the evening’s highlights right here at aarp.org/entertainment, and add your own comments on how it went.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.

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