Oscar nominations — my own two bits, and a complete list
Oscar nominations — my own two bits, and a complete list
The streaming services took a big step back this year, with one notable exception.
It’s been a few years since the last time I did a first-thoughts write-up in response to the Oscar nominations, but let’s give it a go on this here Substack.
Traditionally, the movie that wins Best Picture is the movie that also got nominations for directing, screenwriting, film editing, and at least one of its actors. By that standard, there are three serious contenders this year: Everything Everywhere All at Once, which led the pack with 11 nominations in 10 categories; The Banshees of Inisherin, which got 9 nominations in 8 categories; and Tár, which got 6 nominations.
However, if the last few years have taught us anything, it is that there are exceptions to every rule—last year’s winner, CODA, won Best Picture despite not even being nominated for its direction or its editing—so anything’s possible.
Strikingly, the film with the second-most nominations is a non-English Netflix film, i.e. All Quiet on the Western Front, a German World War I movie that got nine nominations overall. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be a surprise that a film like this did so well, as Netflix has had success with foreign-language films in the past (e.g. Roma, which got ten nominations and won three Oscars, including best director). It also helps that All Quiet is a war movie with brutally realistic combat footage, which is the sort of thing the Academy likes. But was Netflix even trying to get this film nominated? I get a lot of ‘For Your Consideration’ screeners as a member of the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, and while Netflix sent me Blu-ray copies of several films this year—including Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which got Oscar nominations, and Hustle and White Noise, which didn’t—they did not send me a copy of All Quiet. I only saw this film because I happen to have a Netflix subscription.
In any case, All Quiet got nominated for nine different awards, but it did not get nominated for its director, actors, or editing, so I don’t expect it to win Best Picture. It is, however, the only nominee for foreign-language film (or “international feature film”, as we now say) to get recognized outside of that category, so I expect it to win that award, at least. And, like Mad Max: Fury Road a few years ago, it might sweep some of the technical categories while missing out on the top “creative” awards.
Let’s see, what other random observations occur to me…?
The film with the most nominations and no Best Picture nod is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with five nominations. The Best Picture nominee with the fewest total nominations is Women Talking, with only two nominations.
Black Panther’s Angela Bassett is the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel movie. She is not the first actor to be nominated for playing a comic-book character, though; Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix both won for playing the Joker, a DC Comics character, in The Dark Knight and Joker, respectively.
There’s a fair bit of déjà vu among this year’s Best Picture nominees. Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick are both sequels—thus marking the first time that two sequels have been nominated for Best Picture in the same year—while All Quiet on the Western Front is the second adaptation of the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque; the first won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1930.
None of this year’s animated features were nominated outside of that category. In the past, some of them have been nominated for script, music, effects, etc.
Ten of the fifteen short films nominated this year are already available online in some form or other, and five of them—two documentaries, two animated films, and one live-action film—are available via The New Yorker and its YouTube channel. Short of the Week has a handy list of the films in question.
While a majority of the nominated feature films are now available online in some capacity—whether via streaming services or individual rentals—it’s striking that, after years of campaigning and significant wins by Amazon, Netflix, and Apple TV+, there is only one straight-to-streaming film that got more than one nomination this morning, said film being All Quiet on the Western Front—which, as noted above, didn’t get a particularly strong push from its distributor, and doesn’t seem likely to win outside of the “international” and technical categories.
The original Top Gun had four Oscar nominations and won one, for original song—and one of the films it was up against in that category was called That’s Life! This year, Top Gun: Maverick is nominated in six categories, including original song—and one of the songs it’s up against is called ‘This Is a Life’.
The Top Gun sequel got more nominations than the original film, rising from four to six, while the Avatar sequel got fewer, dropping from nine to four. The difference is even more pronounced when you consider that the original films in both series were nominated for two sound awards, and this year there is only one sound category—so in a sense, the Top Gun franchise doubled its tally from three to six, while the Avatar franchise halved its tally from eight to four.
And now, without any further ado, the nominated feature films, listed from those with the most nominations to those with the fewest:
11 nominations in 10 categories
Everything Everywhere All at Once — Picture, director (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert), actress (Michelle Yeoh), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan), supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu), original screenplay, costume design, film editing, original score, original song (‘This Is a Life’)
9 nominations
All Quiet on the Western Front — Picture, international feature film, adapted screenplay, cinematography, production design, makeup, visual effects, original score, sound
9 nominations in 8 categories
The Banshees of Inisherin — Picture, director (Martin McDonagh), actor (Colin Farrell), supporting actor (Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan), supporting actress (Kerry Condon), original screenplay, film editing, original score
8 nominations
Elvis — Picture, actor (Austin Butler), cinematography, production design, costume design, makeup, film editing, sound
7 nominations
The Fabelmans — Picture, director (Steven Spielberg), actress (Michelle Williams), supporting actor (Judd Hirsch), original screenplay, production design, original score
6 nominations
Tár — Picture, director (Todd Field), actress (Cate Blanchett), original screenplay, cinematography, film editing
Top Gun: Maverick — Picture, adapted screenplay, visual effects, film editing, original song (‘Hold My Hand’), sound
5 nominations
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — Supporting actress (Angela Bassett), costume design, makeup, visual effects, original song (‘Lift Me Up’)
4 nominations
Avatar: The Way of Water — Picture, production design, visual effects, sound
3 nominations
Babylon — Production design, costume design, original score
The Batman — Makeup, visual effects, sound
Triangle of Sadness — Picture, director (Ruben Ostlund), original screenplay
The Whale — Actor (Brendan Fraser), supporting actress (Hong Chau), makeup
2 nominations
Living — Actor (Bill Nighy), adapted screenplay
Women Talking — Picture, adapted screenplay
1 nomination
Aftersun — Actor (Paul Mescal)
All That Breathes — Documentary
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — Documentary
Argentina, 1985 — International feature film
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths — Cinematography
Blonde — Actress (Ana de Armas)
Causeway — Supporting actor (Brian Tyree Henry)
Close — International feature film
Empire of Light — Cinematography
EO — International feature film
Fire of Love — Documentary
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — Adapted screenplay
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio — Animated feature
A House Made of Splinters — Documentary
Marcel the Shell with Shoes on — Animated feature
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris — Costume design
Navalny — Documentary
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish — Animated feature
The Quiet Girl — International feature film
RRR — Original song (‘Naatu Naatu’)
The Sea Beast — Animated feature
Tell It Like a Woman — Original song (‘Applause’)
To Leslie — Actress (Andrea Riseborough)
Turning Red — Animated feature
The winners will be announced at the Oscar ceremony on Sunday, March 12.