This is one of Vox's Future Perfect predictions for 2023; they give it a 75% probability.

After Dylan Matthews biffed it last year when he predicted that the 2022 Academy Award for Best Picture would go to Belfast, a movie that I’m still not 100 percent sure was real, I’m hesitant to wade into Carpetbagger territory. This is compounded by the fact that of the 10 films Variety projects have the best chance at taking home the gold statuette, I’ve seen precisely two: the honestly overrated Everything Everywhere All at Once and the 131 minutes of “America! Fuck yeah!” that is Top Gun: Maverick. You have that right: I am the reason that critically acclaimed films are bombing at the box office.

But even though I’m no cineaste, I’ve watched enough Oscar telecasts to have a pretty good idea of what the Academy is looking for. And it is not, apparently, movies that audiences go to see. While nearly every Best Picture winner between 1980 and 2003 was among the 20 top-grossing movies of the year, only three winners since have cracked that list.

Top Gun: Maverick isn’t just the highest-grossing film of the year, it has nearly doubled the performance of its closest competitor, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Add that to its summer release — recently, the Academy has mostly preferred films released near the end of the year — and the odds are bad for the fighter plane flick. If I had to choose a winner, it would be Tár, because why wouldn’t an industry facing an existential audience crisis choose a critically acclaimed film that no one has seen? But I do expect Top Gun: Maverick to take home the award for Best Visual Effects, both for the amazing, real-life dogfighting sequences and for whatever it is that keeps 60-year-old Tom Cruise looking ageless.

(Vox)

Resolves according to Vox Future Perfect's judgment at the end of the year.