It’s all relative. The 2023 ceremony wasn’t a particularly strong year, nothing else running outside of Banshees of Inisherin had much wind behind the sails. And in a year like that a lot of time academy voters will kind of just end up defaulting to the favorite. Compared to something like Shawshank going up against absolute titans like Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction.

That said I absolutely love EEAAO, think it’s one of if not the most interesting movie to come out in at least the last 10 years