The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed the 10 Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and while all of them have high Rotten Tomatoes scores, some are better than others. Of course, the Academy Awards voting process is drastically different than Rotten Tomatoes' scoring system, so their relative scores are hardly an indication of what movies have the best chances of winning, but their Rotten Tomatoes ranking with critics and audiences does give some insight into each movie's overall reception.
The 10 nominees include Triangle of Sadness, Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Women Talking, Tár, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Fabelmans, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Banshees of Inisherin. The average Rotten Tomatoes critic score is 88 percent, the average Top Critic score is 84 percent, and the average audience score is 82 percent. While audiences and critics are generally in alignment, the Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics averaged 6 points higher than audiences, with a few movies seeing even bigger divides between critics and audiences. Here's how all the 2022 Academy Award nominees for Best Picture rank in Rotten Tomatoes.
10 Triangle of Sadness
Triangle of Sadness is the 10th-ranked Oscar Best Picture nominee on Rotten Tomatoes with a 72 percent. Its Tomatometer isn't only the lowest of the nominees, coming in 16 points below the 88 percent average, but it also got a Rotten 59% from Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" (the only nominee to get a Rotten score in any category) and its 73 percent audience score is also tied with The Banshees of Inisherin for the worst audience score among the nominees.
9 Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar: The Way of Water might be the highest grossing movie released in 2022, but its 77 percent Rotten Tomatoes only ranks ninth among the other Oscar nominees. Elvis also has a 77 percent, although Avatar: The Way of Water's 316 Fresh reviews and 96 Rotten reviews comes out to 76.7 percent, while Elvis' 298 Fresh reviews and 88 Rotten reviews comes out to 77.2 percent. Avatar: The Way of Water's 87 percent audience score is 10 points higher than its critic score, and while it's hardly the best audience score among the nominees, it is one of only four of the nominees to receive a higher score from audiences than from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
8 Elvis
Elvis' 77 percent Rotten Tomatoes score (specifically, 77.2 percent) edges out Avatar: The Way of Water for eighth best Rotten Tomatoes score among the Best Picture Oscar nominees. Elvis also earned the second-highest Rotten Tomatoes audience score with 91 percent, and, like Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis is one of the four nominees to get a higher Rotten Tomatoes audience score than critic score.
7 Women Talking
Women Talking is the seventh ranked Oscar Nominee based on its 90 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. With 185 Fresh reviews and 20 Rotten reviews, its actual score is 90.24 percent, which is an exact tie with Tár, which also has 90.24 percent from 259 Fresh reviews and 28 Rotten reviews, but with an average rating of 8.2 and a Top Critic score of 88 percent, Women Talking loses the tiebreakers to Tár's 8.3 average rating and 91 percent from Top Critics. Women Talking's 77 percent audience score is also the fourth lowest among the nominees, coming in five points under the 82 percent audience average.
6 Tár
Tár's 90 percent Rotten Tomatoes score makes it the sixth ranked Oscar Best Picture nominee, barely edging out Women Talking thanks to a slightly better average rating and Top Critic score as outlined previously. Despite the strong score from critics, Tár's 67 percent audience score is the lowest Rotten Tomatoes audience score of the Best Picture nominees, which also gives it the second-biggest split between critics and audiences with a 23 point difference between the two scores.
5 All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front's 92 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is also a tie, coming in at the same as The Fabelmans on the Tomatomer, but with 120 Fresh reviews and 11 Rotten reviews, All Quiet on the Western Front's score comes to 91.6 percent Fresh, while The Fabelmans has 280 Fresh reviews and 25 Rotten reviews gives it a slightly higher 91.8 percent. All Quiet on the Western Front's 92 percent is four points higher than the Best Picture nominee average, and its 90 percent audience score is the third highest, coming in eight points over the 82 percent average audience score.
4 The Fabelmans
The Fabelmans' 92 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is the fourth best out of the Oscar Best Picture nominees, edging out All Quiet on the Western Front. It's the seventh-best Rotten Tomatoes score Steven Spielberg has ever earned on one of his movies, and also makes the 2020s the best average Rotten Tomatoes score in Spielberg's career. While The Fabelmans' Rotten Tomatoes score is four points higher than the 88 percent average, its 78 percent audience score is actually four points lower than the average Rotten Tomatoes audience score of the other Best Picture nominees.
3 Everything Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once's 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is the third-biggest Rotten Tomatoes score of the Oscar Best Picture nominees, coming in seven points higher than the average. Its 85 percent audience score is three points higher than the 82 percent average and ranks fifth, the exact middle of all the other Oscar Best Picture nominees Rotten Tomatoes audience scores.
2 Top Gun: Maverick
Top Gun: Maverick's 96 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is the second highest of all the Best Picture nominees, but its 99 percent score from Top Critics is actually the best Top Critic score, which is an impressive accomplishment considering the type of movie nominated for Best Picture typically have higher Top Critic scores than blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick. With a 98 percent
Rotten Tomatoes audience score, Top Gun: Maverick is the highest rated nominee according to Rotten Tomatoes audiences, meaning a slightly higher critic score would have given it the top spot in all three categories.
1 The Banshees of Inisherin
The Banshees of Inisherin is the top rated Oscar Best Picture nominee on Rotten Tomatoes with a 97 percent critic score, however, its 73 percent audience score (tied for second lowest) gives The Banshees of Inisherin a 24 point split between critics and audiences, beating Tár by a single point to become the Oscar best Picture nominee with the biggest split between the Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics and audiences. Top Critics, however, are more in alignment, giving it a 94 percent score, the second highest Top Critic score of all the Oscar Best Picture nominees behind Top Gun: Maverick.