The Academy Awards are always known for throw some curveballs, but the announcement of this years’ nominations went mostly to script. Among the nominations revealed for the 2023 Oscars ceremony is Angela Bassett, who becomes the first actress to ever be nominated for Marvel Studios movie for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Having already walked away with the Golden Globe award, many are expecting Bassett to take the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and make history for the Marvel franchise.

The Best Supporting Actress award will not be an easy win for Bassett, with the nominees including Hong Chau for The Whale, Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin and Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu both for Everything Everywhere All At Once. However, having already secured wins this awards season, there are few people who would bet against the Black Panther franchise once again being the one to bring history-making recognition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When picking up her Golden Globe Award for her role as Queen Ramonda in the Black Panther sequel, Bassett thanked Marvel fans and remembered Chadwick Boseman in an emotional acceptance speech. She said:

“Weeping may come in the evening, but joy comes in the morning. We embarked on this journey together with love. We mourned, we loved, we healed. We were surrounded each and every day by the light and spirit of Chadwick Boseman. We have joy in knowing that with this historic Black Panther series, it is a part of his legacy that he helped to lead us to. We showed the world what Black united leadership [looks like] beyond, behind and in front of the camera. To the Marvel fans, thank you for embracing these characters and showing us so much love.”

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Who Will Win The Biggest Awards of the 2023 Oscars?

There is no clear front runner in many of the big categories, especially going off recent other awards ceremonies. The Best Actor award seems to be down to a two horse race between Brendan Fraser for The Whale and Austin Butler for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis. While the Best Actress nominations include strong and much publicized performances by Michelle Yeoh and Ana de Armas are among the front runners of another unpredictable category.

Elsewhere, Everything Everywhere All At Once picked up the most nominations with a total of eleven across all categories, including four acting nominations, Best Director and Best Picture nods. With the movie having proven to be a success at the Golden Globes this year’s Oscars ceremony could be a huge night for the movie that proved you don’t need a mega-budget to be a movie sensation.

While there have been no real surprises in the nominations, the Oscars Ceremony will be hoping that the awards night itself goes off without any of the controversy that overshadowed last year’s ceremony with Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock becoming the defining moment of the whole evening. While there is no doubt that someone will take the chance to reference the incident, there will hopefully be no one looking to gain the same infamy this year.