With the 2023 Academy Awards just four months away, Top Gun: Maverick has received its first major victory of the awards season. Any concerns about Tom Cruise's high-flying fighter pilot film failing to recapture an audience vanished upon its release ahead of Memorial Day weekend in late May. It took the world by storm nearly 40 years after Top Gun did the very same thing in 1986, dominating at the worldwide box office and bringing in just under $1.5 billion during its theatrical run en route to becoming the top-grossing film of 2022.
Per Deadline, the National Board of Review announced on Thursday that Top Gun: Maverick has earned the New York-based film association's honors for the best film of 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented many film lovers from making the trek to the theater, but Top Gun: Maverick's record-breaking run played an instrumental role in bringing people back, according to National Board of Review president Annie Schulhof. Schulhof praised the film on behalf of the association, citing it as a thrilling crowd-pleaser and a full-on cinematic achievement.
“Top Gun: Maverick is a thrilling crowd-pleaser that is expertly crafted on every level. Tom Cruise, Joseph Kosinski and the entire filmmaking team have succeeded in making an incredibly popular film that brought audiences back to theaters, while at the same time being a full-on cinematic achievement.”
What This Means for Top Gun: Maverick's Oscars Chances
The National Board of Review's awards announcement is the annual reminder that awards season has arrived. Their picks are considered an early harbinger of the film awards season and an indicator of how Academy Awards voting could shake out in the spring. Top Gun: Maverick's first big win could be a precursor for a best picture win for Cruise, Kosinski, and Paramount Pictures in March. That outcome isn't a sure thing, though. Despite reigning as box office king, Maverick will face stiff competition from films big and small as the awards season progresses.
In terms of big-budget blockbusters, Avatar: The Way of Water is sure to experience massive monetary success when it releases on December 16. Much like Maverick, The Way of Water is a highly-anticipated sequel to an original pop culture phenomenon. Director James Cameron is already hyping up his new film's visual spectacle, stating that Marvel's motion capture VFX on big purple villain Thanos is "not even close" to matching what he has in store for the new Avatar. Maverick also has Best Picture competition from smaller productions like the Colin Ferrell-led The Banshees of Inisherin, word-of-mouth hit Everything Everywhere All at Once, and the critically acclaimed The Fablemans, for which Steven Spielberg won the National Board of Review's award for best director.
Maverick does appear to be a virtual lock for a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards, though. Over the last 30 years, the National Board of Review's Best Film winner has been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar all but five times. As the Oscar can have upwards of ten nominees, it's difficult to imagine Cruise's film not being among that group. If not for its story, then certainly for Top Gun: Maverick's breathtaking visuals, stunt work, action choreography, and immersive sound design and cinematography. In many ways, it's a true throwback to the big summer blockbusters of years past.
The next few months are shaping up to be a stretch of well-earned high honors for the mega-hit film. The level of passion and effort put into the project has been well documented, and the result of that hard work has been praised by critics and audiences alike. Top Gun: Maverick got a theatrical re-release at the beginning of December and will continue to play in select theaters through December 15 in the lead-up to awards season, so now is a good time for filmgoers to experience (or re-experience) the spectacle on the big screen before it starts piling up the trophies.
Source: Deadline