Best Car Representation of the 2023 Academy Award Best Picture Nominees

Hardly as dramatic and controversial as last year’s Academy Awards, this year's event rolled down a champagne-colored carpet for the first time and awarded seven gold statuettes to Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The multiverse film starring now a cast of Academy Award winners, including Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis, got 8 out of 10 on IMDB, with 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. While that's hardly a car-related movie, we decided to check all the nominees out and give our own Best Car Representation Award to one of the nominees.

We won’t focus all our attention on Everything Everywhere All at Once, though, but all the nominees for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards.

#1 All Quiet on the Western Front

The Netflix-distributed war film won big at the 95th Academy Awards, going home with a total of four Oscars, and Best International Feature Film being one of them.

Since it's a movie about a young German's experiences on the western front during World War I, cars were not of particular interest to director Edward Berger.

That doesn't mean there weren't a few vehicles there, and we had a Saint-Chamond tank, a 1915 Ford Model T, a 1914 Laurin & Klement Type MS truck, and a 1919 Unic MO.

There's also a 1927 Chevrolet 1-Ton, an anachronism, given the action is set during WWI.

#2 Avatar: The Way of Water

The long-awaited Avatar sequel hit theaters in late 2022 and didn't fail to score four Oscar nominations, going home with Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

The entire action in Avatar: The Way of Water happens on Pandora, the fictional planet where the Na'vi live, so we do not get any traditional Earth vehicles. It does, however, use some fictional vehicles. There's the S-76 SeaDragon, the mothership used by Cetacean Operations to hunt Tulkuns. From the SeaDragon, the Matador, a high-speed boat, is deployed. We also get to see a submersible crab suit called SMP-2 Crab Suit, ready to wrangle the whale-looking Tulkuns. At the beginning of the movie, we also see a train, proving how far humans have gotten on Pandora, as well as a Skel Suit, meant to increase humans' abilities against the Na'vi.

To promote the movie, 20th Century Fox studios joined forces with Mercedes-Benz, using the German manufacturer's Vision AVTR, which, thanks to its bionic flaps, could've worked perfectly in The Way of Water.

#3 The Banshees of Inisherin

Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin is set on a remote island in Ireland, with a set purposefully created for the movie.

In the typical small-island town style, there are no roads, so there are no cars in this movie, only a horse-drawn carriage. A pickup truck could've worked, probably, and our top picks are a Chevrolet C/K Series or a Ford F-Series to go with the setting.

The highly acclaimed movie managed to score nine Oscar nominations but didn't win in any of the categories.

#4 Elvis

The Austin Butler-lead Elvis Presley biography scored eight Oscar nominations, with the actor being favorite to win Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. He didn't go home with the gold statuette, but he did win our hearts with his portrayal of Elvis.

If you know anything about Elvis, besides the fact that he was the king of rock'n'roll, he was also quite a car fan, and the movie does portray that.

'The King' liked Cadillacs in particular. So the movie includes a 1956 Eldorado Biarritz, a Series 62 Convertible, and a Fleetwood 60 Special, plus a couple of Chevrolet Bel Airs, a Lincoln Continental Mark II, a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III, and a couple of Mercedes-Benz examples.

#5 Everything Everywhere All at Once

The absolute winner of the night, Everything Everywhere All at Once has a multitude of elements from different genres, but cars aren't a focus point.

However, the official vehicle of the Wang family was a 1980 Dodge RV that seems to be the Sportsman, which they drive around in different scenes, and a 1986 Volvo 240.

The RV with Laundry Workers Center written on it was offered for auction exactly the way it was in the movie. Currently not street legal and in need of a new transmission, engine, tires, and interior updates, the RV sold for $11,000.

#6 The Fabelmans

The Steven Spielberg coming-of-age film has been in the works for over two decades, and on hold for almost the entire time.

The semi-autobiographical story's action starts in the early 1950s, following Sammy from his childhood to high school, and it shows time-appropriate vehicles.

The list includes a 1963 Chevrolet Bel Air, a Chrysler New Yorker Town & Country, a 1963 Ford Country Squire, a Plymouth Belvedere, and an Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 in main roles, with more age-appropriate cars and brands from Plymouth, Buick, Cadillacs, Ford, and Dodge.

#7 Tár

The Todd Field-directed psychological drama starring Cate Blanchett is a modern film, and the setting shows it. It received six nominations, including one for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for Blanchett.

Lydia Tár, the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, acts the part and drives a modern car, an EV, on top of that - a Porsche Taycan Turbo S. A Ford Crown Victoria, a Mercedes-Benz GLS, and a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class are also part of the movie.

The motion picture also shows sights of even more Mercedes-Benz, Audis, Jaguars, and BMWs.

#8 Top Gun: Maverick

The highly anticipated Top Gun sequel did not bring all the boys to the yard for cars, but for planes. While we do acknowledge that, there's no Tom Cruise movie without a few wheels.

There are a couple of motorcycles, Maverick's Kawasaki Ninja H2 R Carbon and Kawasaki GPZ 900 R Ninja, plus a Ford Bronco, a Ford Expedition Max, and a 1973 Porsche 911 E.

The movie does include plenty of aircraft, including a Lockheed Martin F35C Lightning II, a Sikorsky MH-60S Jayhawk, and a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.

#9 Triangle of Sadness

Triangle of Sadness might not have a lot of cars on display, save for a few fleeting scenes, but it does have plenty of luxury.

With three Academy Awards nominations, the satirical black comedy that follows a couple on a luxury cruise is filmed on a real yacht: Christina O.

The luxury vessel is a restored warship that belonged to Aristotle Onassis, and it does come with quite a Hollywood history. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly all stepped foot on board Christina O. The luxury yacht also recently appeared in the Netflix series The Crown.

#10 Women Talking

Women Talking, starring Rooney Mara and Claire Foy, is a movie focused on a group of women pertaining to the Mennonite colony in Bolivia.

Since it's a movie about Anabaptist Christian church communities, there are no vehicles available.

Out of its two Oscar nominations, the Sarah Polley-directed film left home with one of them, for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Best Car Representation:

And the winner of our Best Cars Representation in an Academy-Awards nominated Best Motion Picture goes to... Elvis.

With eight nominations, the 2022 biography film was expected to leave with a few Oscars, with the lead actor, Austin Butler, winning his first. He lost to Brendan Fraser. For us, though, it feels like it embodied the car scene perfectly, including Presley's love for Cadillacs. Spielberg’s The Fabelmans was almost at a tie.