Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid have announced the Oscar nominations and that can only mean one thing. It's time for Cinema Paradiso users to make their annual predictions!
As in previous years, Cinema Paradiso invites members to use their impeccable judgement to predict the winners in the 23 categories up for grabs at the 96th Academy Awards. So, why not cast your votes before host Jimmy Kimmel takes to the stage at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on Sunday 10 March?
On offer to the person who correctly predicts the most winners are SIX MONTHS of free rentals from CinemaParadiso.co.uk. Cast your vote by clicking here!
In order to help you make up your mind, let's take a shufti at the contenders in the six major categories.
BEST PICTURE
Fifteen years have passed since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opted to double the number of titles in the Best Picture category. This means there are 10 contenders for the biggest prize of the night and that makes it all the trickier for Cinema Paradiso users to decide where to cast their vote.
Leading the way on 13 nominations is Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Telling the story of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the dawning of the Atomic Age, this three-hour biopic found an unexpected box-office companion in Greta Gerwig's Barbie, which was released on the same day in the United States. Booking double tickets for a grand night out, people rediscovered the communal feel-good factor of movie-going after the Covid pandemic. Now, having amassed a combined gross of $2 billion worldwide, the cultural phenomenon known as 'Barbenheimer' has landed a whopping 21 nominations, as the tale inspired by a doll that first went on sale in 1959 received eight nominations of its own.
For the fifth year in a row, at least one of the Best Picture nominees has been directed by a woman. But Gerwig, Justine Triet ( Anatomy of a Fall ), and Celine Song ( Past Lives ) have ensured that this is the first time that the category includes three titles by women. Previously, female directors have only doubled up on four occasions, courtesy of Lone Scherfig's An Education and Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (both 2009), Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik's Winter's Bone (both 2010), Chloé Zhao's Nomadland and Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (both 2020), and Siân Heder's CODA and Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog (both 2021). Bigelow, Zhao, and Heder all went home clutching statuettes.
Seven of the 10 nominees boast female producers, although Marie-Ange Luciani (Anatomy of a Fall), Margot Robbie (Barbie), Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger (Maestro), Emma Thomas (Oppenheimer), Emma Stone (Poor Things), Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon (Past Lives), and Ewa Puszczynska (The Zone of Interest) haven't managed to set a new record. In 2020, all but two entrants in the Best Picture stakes included a woman producer, with South Korean Kwak Sin-ae becoming the first woman of colour to win top prize for co-producer Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019). The history-making runners-up were Jenno Topping ( Ford v Ferrari ), Jane Rosenthal and Emma Tillinger Koskoff ( The Irishman ), Chelsea Winstanley ( Jojo Rabbit ), Emma Tillinger Koskoff ( Joker ), Amy Pascal (Little Women), Pippa Harris and Jayne-Ann Tenggren ( 1917 ), and Shannon McIntosh ( Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood ).
With 93 countries submitting items for this years awards, the category's diversity quotient has taken another welcome upward spike through the inclusion of three titles not primarily in the English language, with Anatomy of a Fall and Past Lives being joined by Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. Dialogue passages are also spoken in the Osage language in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon.
The only two nominees we've not mentioned so far are Cord Jefferson's American Fiction and Alexander Payne's The Holdovers. However, along with Barbie and Poor Things, they form part of a quartet of comedies up for Best Picture. All featured in the Golden Globe line-up for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), with Ben Affleck's Air and Todd Haynes's May December being the unlucky pair not to make the cut. Four comedies were also nominated in 2014, namely David O. Russell's American Hustle, Spike Jonze's Her, Alexander Payne's Nebraska, and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street - all of which are available to rent on high-quality DVD or Blu-ray from Cinema Paradiso.
Adapted from Perceval Everett's novel, Erasure, American Fiction is like a literary equivalent of Mel Brooks's The Producers (1967), as academic Thelonius Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) publishes a satirical book stuffed with African American clichés only for it to be hailed as a great work of bestselling art. Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004) is the only previous Best Picture nominee to have an author as a principal character, although historical writers have figured in two Oscar winners, William Dieterle's The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1998), as well as a clutch of nominees: Stephen Daldry's The Hours (2002); Marc Foster's Finding Neverland (2004); Bennett Miller's Capote (2005); and David Fincher's Mank (2020).
The focus falls on another novelist in Anatomy of a Fall, as Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is accused of killing husband Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) at their chalet outside Grenoble. Coming into the Oscars on the back of seven BAFTA nominations and the Golden Globes for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film, Justine Triet's tense drama has also received 11 César nods and the Palme d'or at Cannes. Consequently, it has been the subject of much discussion in France after having been overlooked in favour of Tr?n Anh Hùng's visually sumptuous period piece, The Taste of Things, as the country's submission for the Best International Feature category.
Three titles with pivotal courtroom sequences have won Best Picture: The Life of Emile Zola, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and Robert Benton's Kramer vs Kramer (1979). However, many more had to be content with a nomination, including Anatole Litvak's All This, and Heaven Too, William Wyler's The Letter (both 1940), George Seaton's Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, Billy Wilder's Witness For the Prosecution (both 1957), Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Stanley Kramer's Judgement At Nuremberg (1961), Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Fred Zinnemann's A Man For All Seasons (1966), Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982), Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992), Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father (1993), Robert Redford's Quiz Show (1994), Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich (2000), Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton (2007), and Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
It's very rare that a year's box-office behemoth also wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Consequently, the odds are stacked against Barbie, which is only the second doll-related feature to be cited in the category after Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3 (2010). That said, it shares an innocent abroad theme with Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things and, thus, finds itself in excellent company alongside Frank Capra's Lady For a Day (1933) and Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Anthony Asquith's Pygmalion (1938), Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka, Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (both 1939), George Cukor's Born Yesterday (1950) and My Fair Lady (1964), John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969), David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980), Steven Spielberg's ET the Extraterrestrial (1982), Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), Robert Zemeckis's Forrest Gump (1994), Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, and Jordan Peele's Get Out (both 2017).
Alexander Payne chronicles events over the 1970 Christmas holidays in The Holdovers, as Barton Academy classics master Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) finds himself in charge of boarding students like Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), who have been unable to travel home. The Academy is fond of school stories, with Norman Taurog's Boys Town (1938), Sam Wood's Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), Leo McCarey's The Bells of St Mary's (1945), George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973), Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society (1989), Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (2017), and Siân Heder's CODA all landing nominations (with the latter winning top prize).
In all, Martin Scorsese's films have been nominated for 91 Oscars, with 10 going to Killers of the Flower Moon, including a posthumous first citation for musician Robbie Robertson and a record ninth for editor Thelma Schoonmaker. It falls one behind both The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011), with the latter's haul of five being the most for any Scorsese feature. Revealing how Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) becomes caught up in the nefarious plans of William King Hale (Robert De Niro) and his war veteran nephew, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), to defraud her of her Osage family's oil headrights, this epic reconstruction of a true story shares some themes with Wesley Ruggles's Best Picture winner, Cimarron (1931), which was even set in a California town named Osage. Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007) also turned around the 1920s oil boom. But this is the first film to focus on Native American rights and customs since Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves (1990) won Best Picture. Admittedly, the Arikara people feature in Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant (2015), while a number of features have discussed racism towards the Black community, but this is a record of neglect that neither Hollywood nor the Academy can be proud of.
As one of the team responsible for Maestro, Steven Spielberg extends his record to 13 for the most nominations as a producer in Oscar history. He's now four clear of Scott Rudin, having previously received Best Picture nominations for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Color Purple (1985), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), The Post (2017), West Side Story (2021), and The Fabelmans (2022). Moreover, he and Kristie Macosko Krieger have become only the third co-producers to notch a hat-trick of consecutive Best Picture nods after Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Barrie M. Osborne for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002), The Two Towers (2003), and The Return of the King (2004) and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner for 12 Years a Slave (2014), Selma (2015), The Big Short (2016), and Moonlight (2017).
Before you cast your vote, however. remember that Spielberg has only converted one of his baker's dozen. But it's not all gloom for Bradley Cooper's biopic of composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, as it comes just a year after Cate Blanchett had excelled as a conductor in Todd Field's Tár (2002), while Miloš Forman's Amadeus (1984) took first prize for recalling the one-sided rivalry between Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And speaking of composers, Spielberg's regular collaborator, John Williams, has earned his 54th nomination at age 91 for James Mangold's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. In so doing, he has extended his record for the most Oscar nominations by a living person. But, as he is now retired, he is not going to catch Walt Disney's tally of 59.
While we're on the subject of records, Oppenheimersound mixer Willie D. Burton now has eight nominations to take him past composer Quincy Jones and become the most recognised African American in Oscar's craft categories. He will be hoping his third win after Clint Eastwood's Bird (1988) and Bill Condon's Dreamgirls (2006) will contribute towards a bumper night for Christopher Nolan's biopic. No film has converted all 13 nominations, but this potent and timely reflection on a dark period in American history seems likely to outdo its peers in an exclusive club, Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (eight wins, 1939), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (six from 14, 1950), Robert Stevenson's Mary Poppins (5/13, 1964), Forrest Gump (6/13, 1994), James Cameron's Titanic (11/14, 1997), Shakespeare in Love (7/13, 1998), Rob Marshall's Chicago (6/13, 2002), David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (3/13, 2008), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (4/13, 2001), Damien Chazelle's La La Land (6/14, 2016), and The Shape of Water (4/13, 2017).
Boffins are rare beasts among the Best Picture nominees, but Oppenheimer currently stands shoulder to shoulder with William Dieterle's The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), Mervyn LeRoy's Madame Curie (1943), Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001), Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game, and James Marsh's The Theory of Everything (both 2014), while fictional scientists feature in Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man (2009) and The Theory of Water.
Celine Song's wonderful tale of separated childhood friends, Past Lives, is the third South Korean title to compete for Best Picture over the last decade. Bong Joon-ho took the award with Parasite, while Lee Isaac Chung's Minari (2020) drew a Best Supporting Actress win for Youn Yuh-jung. Three features not exclusively in English have been nominated this year and they follow in the sprocket holes of Costa-Gavras's Z (1969), Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful (1998), Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Michael Haneke's Amour (2012), Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (2018), Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car (2021), and Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front (2022).
Adapted from a novel by Alasdair Grey and charting the progress of a 19th-century woman who is revived and given the brain of her unborn daughter by a doctor after a suicide bid off a London bridge, Poor Things has been fiercely debated because of its exploration and depiction of female sexuality and passion. Some have deemed it a step backwards for feminist cinema after Sarah Polley's Women Talking (2022). Indeed, such has been the level of controversy that the 11-time nominee could emulate Herbert Ross's The Turning Point (1977) and The Color Purple in enduring a record number of Oscar losses. However, Emma Stone is a highly intelligent artist who is in complete control of every aspect of her performance and she joins Frances McDormand for Chloé Zhao's Nomadland (2020) in being nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress for the same film.
Finally, a 2014 Martin Amis novel has provided the source for Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, which turns on the domestic life of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife, Hedwig. Numerous films set during the Second World War have been nominated for Best Picture, with William Wyler's Mrs Miniver, Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (both 1942), Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity (1953), David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton (1970), and Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996) all taking the honours. But Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List currently stands alone in having prioritised the Holocaust and it would be quite an achievement 79 years after the discovery of the Nazi death camps if this powerful film prevailed.
BEST DIRECTOR
As the commotion following the exclusion of Greta Gerwig from the Best Director list subsides, it should be remembered that four more directors of Best Picture nominees failed to make the cut. Then again, Alexander Payne, Cord Jefferson, Bradley Cooper, and Celine Song didn't call the shots on a cultural phenomenon that had taken $1.4 billion at the box office.
With Gerwig and Song (who has become the first Asian-born woman to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay) on the sidelines, Justine Triet is the only woman up for Best Director for Anatomy of a Fall. She becomes the first French and only the ninth female nominee in the category in 96 years, following Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties (1975), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2022), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003), Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2009), Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (2017), Chloé Zhao for Nomadland, and Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman (both 2021).
Triet co-wrote her brooding thriller with partner Arthur Harari and their nomination for Best Original Screenplay makes them one of several couples honoured this year. Fellow first-time writing duo, Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik (May December), are joined by Best Adapted Screenplay nominees, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, whose Barbie producers, Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley, are also an item. As are Oppenheimer producers Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, and Jared and Jerusha Hess, whose Ninety-Five Senses is up for Best Animated Short.
This is only Christopher Nolan's second Best Director nod after Dunkirk (2018). But he also has a raft of Best Picture and Original Screenplay citations for Memento (2002) and Inception (2011). Should he or Jonathan Glazer triumph on the night, they would become the eleventh British winner after Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady, 1929 & Cavalcade, 1933), David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957 & Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), Tony Richardson ( Tom Jones, 1963), Carol Reed ( Oliver!, 1968), John Schlesinger ( Midnight Cowboy, 1969), Richard Attenborough ( Gandhi, 1982), Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, 1996), Sam Mendes ( American Beauty, 1999), Danny Boyle ( Slumdog Millionaire, 2008), and Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech, 2010).
Glazer may be a newbie at this level, but he also becomes the first Brit to be nominated for Director, Screenplay, and Best International Film in the same year. Made in German and Polish, The Zone of Interest becomes only the third British film to be nominated in this category, following the Welsh duo of Paul Turner's Hedd Wynn (1993) and Paul Morrison's Solomon and Gaenor (1999). Renowned for his commercials and music videos, the 58 year-old has only made four features. But Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004), and Under the Skin (2013) have all been widely acclaimed.
Poor Things is Yorgos Lanthimos's eighth feature, with Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), The Lobster (2015), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), and The Favourite (2018) all being available to rent from Cinema Paradiso. Hailing from Athens, he is the fourth Greek-born director to be nominated in this category, although John Cassavetes, Alexander Payne, and George Miller also have Greek ancestry. Michael Cacoyannis and Constantin Costa-Gavras were respectively nominated for Zorba the Greek (1964) and Z (1969). But they are outshone by Elia Kazan, who was born in Istanbul when it was still known as Constantinople. A controversial figure because of his behaviour during the HUAC investigation into Communism in Hollywood, Kazan was nominated for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), East of Eden (1955), and America, America (1963), while also winning for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954).
Martin Scorsese discusses Kazan's career in A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995). Despite scooping twice the number of nominations, Scorsese only has one Oscar to his credit, for The Departed (2006). He will be hoping that Killers of the Flower Moon doesn't join Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), GoodFellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and The Irishman (2019) among the also rans.
At 81, Scorsese overtakes 79 year-old John Huston ( Prizzi's Honor, 1985) as the oldest person to be nominated for Best Director. If he wins, he would pip Clint Eastwood, who was 74 when he took the award with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Scorsese also goes past Steven Spielberg with his tenth nomination, although he still trails William Wyler, who claimed three wins from 12 nods. No one looks likely to surpass John Ford's haul of four wins, however, for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952).
BEST ACTOR
Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction) and Colman Domingo (Rustin) are among 10 actors who have earned their first Oscar nominations this year. Wright's inclusion alongside Best Supporting nominee Sterling K. Brown (they play brothers) in Cord Jefferson's directorial debut means that they are the first African American co-stars to be nominated in these categories. This is the sixth time that two Black men have competed against each other in this category, after Denzel Washington ( Training Day ) and Will Smith ( Ali, both 2001), Jamie Foxx ( Ray ) and Don Cheadle ( Hotel Rwanda, both 2004), Forest Whitaker ( The Last King of Scotland ) and Smith ( The Pursuit of Happyness, both 2006), Washington ( Roman J. Israel, Esq. ) and Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, both 2017), and Smith ( King Richard ) and Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth, both 2021).
If Wright or Domingo were to win, they would become the sixth Black man to take Best Actor after Sidney Poitier ( Lilies of the Field, 1963), Denzel Washington (Training Day), Jamie Foxx (Ray), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), and Will Smith (King Richard). Domingo would be the fourth to do so for playing an historical character, as Bayard Rustin was a gay Civil Rights activist who helped organise Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963.
Domingo is already the first out Black actor and out Latino actor to be nominated in the category. However, he joins a select band of out actors being nominated for playing LGBTQIA+ characters that currently includes only Ian McKellen for playing director James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998). The Philadelphian would also become the second out gay actor after Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) to win the award. Four straight actors have won Best Actor for playing gay characters, William Hurt ( Kiss of the Spiderwoman, 1985), Tom Hanks ( Philadelphia, 1993). Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, 2005), and Sean Penn ( Milk, 2008).
Conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein was bisexual, as is revealed in Maestro. Bradley Cooper becomes, therefore, the sixth actor to be nominated for playing a bi or bi-curious character after Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain (2005), Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name (2017), and Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). Only the latter has won for his performance, however.
With A Star Is Born (2018), Cooper became the 15th person to direct himself to an Oscar nomination. By taking his fourth in the category (and his 12th in all), he has now become only the fourth to have done so twice. In so doing, he follows Laurence Olivier ( Henry V, 1944; Hamlet, 1948; & Richard III, 1955), Warren Beatty ( Heaven Can Wait, 1978 & Reds, 1981), Clint Eastwood ( Unforgiven, 1992 & Million Dollar Baby, 2004), To date, no woman has ever directed herself to a Best Actress nomination.
Cooper would become the second Best Actor winner to have played a composer, after F. Murray Abraham triumphed as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus, which also brought Tom Hulce a nomination as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Paul Giamatti (who was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Cinderella Man, 2005) also has a precedent to cling to, as Robert Donat stunned everyone by pipping Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind as Charles Edward Chipping in Goodbye, Mr Chips (both 1939). Peter O'Toole was nominated for the same role in Herbert Ross's 1969 musical remake, while Michael Caine ( Educating Rita, 1983), William Hurt ( Children of a Lesser God, 1986), Robin Williams ( Dead Poets Society, 1989), and Richard Dreyfuss ( Mr Holland's Opus, 1995) have all been nominated for portraying teachers. Last year's winner, Brendan Fraser ( The Whale, 2022) played a private tutor, so Giamatti (who is many people's favourite) could swing an educational back-to-back success.
Standing in his way is Cillian Murphy, who played the 'father of the atomic bomb' in Oppenheimer. Discounting Daniel Day-Lewis (who has dual citizenship), no Irishman has received the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, like Domingo and Cooper, Murphy stands a better chance for playing an actual person. Twenty-three previous winners have portrayed a famous figure, but none of them has essayed a scientist. The news is better for Domingo, however, as Harvey Milk was an activist, while Cooper can cling to the fact that David Helfgot in Shine (1996) and Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist (2002) could both tinkle the ivories.
BEST ACTRESS
Now that Margot Robbie has put her perceived Barbie snub into perspective by very sensibly and sportingly declaring, 'There's no way to feel sad when you know you're this blessed,' the rest of us can focus on the Best Actress race in hand. Will the prize go to one of the two first-time nominees, a second-timer, a fifth-time-lucky hopeful, or a past winner?
Twenty-seven performances have been nominated in the Best Actress category in which a performer has spoken a language other than English. After Anna Magnani won speaking Italian and English for The Rose Tattoo (1956), Sophia Loren became the first non-English winner for Two Women (1961). Subsequently, Meryl Streep (Sophie's Choice, 1982), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en rose, 2007), and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once, 2022) have won with bi-lingual performances. Notably, Jane Wyman (Johnny Belinda, 1948) and Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, 1988) won Best Actress using American Sign Language, while Holly Hunter communicated through British Sign Language in The Piano (1993).
First-timers Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) and Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) should be boosted by this news, as they respectively speak in French and German and Osage, as well as English during their performances. Hüller becomes the first German nominee since Luise Rainer won in consecutive years for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). But Gladstone is the first Native American to be nominated in the category, although she's the third Indigenous actress after Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider (2003) and Yalitza Aparicio for Roma (2018). As she uses the she/they pronouns, Gladstone is also the first openly non-binary nominee for Best Actress.
A surprise inclusion, but a welcome one nonetheless is Annette Bening for Nyad, a celebration of the remarkable aquatic achievements of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, which was directed by feature debutants Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the married couple who already have Oscars as the co-directors of the feature documentary, Free Solo (2019). This is Bening's fifth nomination after Best Actress nods for American Beauty (1999), Being Julia (2004), and The Kids Are All Right (2010) and a Best Supporting citation for The Grifters (1990). At 65, she is the oldest nominee in the field, while Emma Stone is the youngest at 35. She already has a Best Actress win for La La Land, as well as a Best Supporting nomination for 2014's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) .
If Stone wins, she will join a select group of dual winners that also includes the aforementioned Luise Rainer, as well as Bette Davis (Dangerous, 1935 & Jezebel, 1938), Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind, 1939 & A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951), Ingrid Bergman ( Gaslight, 1944 & Anastasia, 1956), Olivia De Havilland ( To Each His Own, 1946 & The Heiress, 1949), Elizabeth Taylor (BUtterfield 8, 1960 & Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966), Glenda Jackson ( Women in Love, 1969 & A Touch of Class, 1973), Jane Fonda ( Klute, 1971 & Coming Home, 1978), Sally Field ( Norma Rae, 1979 & Places in the Heart, 1984), Meryl Streep ( Sophie's Choice, 1982 & The Iron Lady, 2011), Jodie Foster ( The Accused, 1988 & The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), and Hilary Swank ( Boys Don't Cry, 1999 & Million Dollar Baby, 2004).
Like Bening, Carey Mulligan is playing an historical figure in Maestro. She was also nominated for a BAFTA for her performance as Leonard Bernstein's Chilean wife, Felicia Montealegre. Either could become the 22nd Best Actress winner for portraying a real person. Only 10 Brits have claimed the statuette, although we could try to lay claim to Joan Fontaine, Olivia DeHavilland, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. However, we can still be proud of Vivien Leigh and Glenda Jackson winning twice each, as well as Greer Garson (Mrs Miniver, 1942), Julie Andrews ( Mary Poppins, 1964), Maggie Smith ( The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969), Jessica Tandy ( Driving Miss Daisy, 1988), Emma Thompson ( Howards End, 1992), Helen Mirren ( The Queen, 2006), Kate Winslet ( The Reader, 2009), and Olivia Coleman (The Favourite, 2018) having to settle (thus far in some cases) for one each.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
All five contenders for Best Supporting Actor appear in films that are up for Best Picture. Apart from one, each has a co-star up for Best Actor or Best Actress, although many feel that Robert De Niro should have had both for Killers of the Flower Moon, as Leonardo DiCaprio was somewhat harshly overlooked.
De Niro already has a Best Supporting Oscar for The Godfather Part II (1974), in which he spoke exclusively in Italian. He attempts a little Osage as the ruthless William King Hale, in his bid to improve on missing out for Silver Linings Playbook (2013). In addition to his win for Raging Bull, De Niro also has Best Actor nods for Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1979), Awakenings (1991), and Cape Fear (1992), and a Best Picture credit for The Irishman (2020). If he wins, he will join Walter Brennan (Come and Get It, 1936; Kentucky, 1938; & The Westerner, 1940), Jack Nicholson ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975; Terms of Endearment, 1983; & As Goood As It Gets, 1997), and Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, 1989; There Will Be Blood, 2007; & Lincoln, 2012) on three Oscars. But he will become the first man to attain the triple with two Best Supporting wins.
Just to add to De Niro's Oscar lustre, he now has nine nominations, which ties him in the acting categories with Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Geraldine Page, Peter O'Toole, Judi Dench, Glenn Close, and Cate Blanchett. O'Toole never got to get his hands on a statutette, but Close still has time.
All the Oscar hullabaloo may feel new to American Fiction's Sterling K. Brown, but the St Louisian knows his way around an award ceremony, as he already has three Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe for The People vs O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) and This Is Us (2016-22). Should he win, he will add his name to a roll of honour that includes Lou Gossett, Jr. ( An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982), Denzel Washington ( Glory, 1989), Cuba Gooding, Jr. ( Jerry Maguire, 1996), Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby), Mahershala Ali ( Moonlight, 2016 & Green Book, 2018), and Daniel Kaluuya ( Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021), If Brown and Jeffrey Wright are both announced, they will become just the fifth co-stars to win the least predictable of the acting categories after Paul Muni and Joseph Schildkraut for The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald for Going My Way (1944), Frederic March and Harold Russell for The Best Years of Our Lives (1945), and Charlton Heston and Hugh Griffith for Ben-Hur (1959).
Ryan Gosling's Ken earned Barbie one of two acting nominations. This is his first nod in the Best Supporting category, but he has lost twice for Best Actor for Half Nelson (2006) and La La Land. Robert Downey, Jr. arrives after playing Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer with two losses of his own, as Best Actor for Chaplin (1992) and Best Supporting for Tropic Thunder (2009). No one has ever prevailed in this category for playing a character inspired by a toy doll, but the aforementioned Joseph Schildkraut and Walter Brennan have won playing historical figures, as have Anthony Quinn ( Viva Zapata!, 1952 & Lust For Life, 1956), Peter Ustinov ( Spartacus, 1960), Jason Robards ( All the President's Men, 1976 & Julia, 1977), Haing S. Ngor ( The Killing Fields, 1984), Martin Landau ( Ed Wood, 1994), Jim Broadbent ( Iris, 2001), Chris Cooper ( Adaptation, 2002), Christian Bale ( The Fighter, 2010), Mark Rylance ( Bridge of Spies, 2015), Mahershala Ali (Green Book), and Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah).
In being recognised for his caddish display as Duncan Wedderburn in Poor Things, Mark Ruffalo earns his fourth Best Supporting nomination. He has yet to win for The Kids Are All Right (2011), Foxcatcher (2015), or Spotlight (2016). But he has still joined the four-timer club alongside Walter Brennan (Come and Get It; Kentucky; The Westerner; & Sergeant York, 1941), Claude Rains ( Mr Smith Goes to Washington, 1940; Casablanca, 1942; Mr Skeffington, 1944, & Notorious, 1946), Arthur Kennedy ( Champion, 1949; Trial, 1955; Peyton Place, 1957; & Some Came Running, 1959), Jack Nicholson ( Easy Rider, 1969; Reds, 1981; Terms of Endearment, 1983; & A Few Good Men, 1992), Jeff Bridges ( The Last Picture Show, 1971; Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, 1974; The Contender, 2000; & Hell or High Water, 2016), Al Pacino ( The Godfather, 1972; Dick Tracy, 1990; Glengarry Glen Ross, 1993; & The Irishman, 2019), and Robert Duvall (The Godfather; Apocalypse Now, 1979; A Civil Action, 1998; & The Judge, 2014).
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Although there are 10 first-time acting nominees across the board at the 96th Academy Awards that's actually a drop of six from last year. This was something of a freak tally and nothing like it had been seen since 1936, when the 16 nominations could be explained by the introduction of the Best Supporting categories. Since 1940, 10 Best Supporting Actor and 14 Best Supporting Actress line-ups have been newcomers only. The Class of 2023/24 is rather spoilt by the return of an old girl, as we shall see.
Danielle Brooks becomes the second performer to be nominated in this category for playing Sofia in The Color Purple, after Oprah Winfrey in Steven Spielberg's 1985 dramatic adaptation of Alice Walker's novel. If Brooks or Golden Globe winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph - who plays catering boss Mary Lamb in The Holdovers - emerge victorious, they will become the tenth Black actress to win the Oscar after Hattie McDaniel for Gone With the Wind, Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (1990), the debuting Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006). Mo'Nique for Precious (2009), Octavia Spencer for The Help (2011), Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave, Viola Davis for Fences (2016), Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and Ariana DeBose for West Side Story (2021).
Still synonymous for many with Ugly Betty (2006-09), America Ferrera has had audiences on their feet cheering Gloria's speech in Barbie. Now, she stands to become only the third Latina to win Best Supporting Actress after Puerto Rican legend Rita Moreno for the original 1961 version of West Side Story (with a Leonard Bernstein score, of course) and Mexican-Kenyan star Lupita Nyong'o. Even if she fails, Ferrera will still be on a par with such estimable stars as Katy Jurado ( Broken Lance, 1954), Norma Aleandro (Gaby: A True Story, 1987), Adriana Barraza ( Babel, 2006), Bérénice Bejo ( The Artist, 2012), and Marina De Tavira (Roma, 2016).
Thanks to her work as Kitty Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt has become the 48th Brit to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. If she wins, she will join Wendy Hiller ( Separate Tables, 1958), Margaret Rutherford (The V.I.P.s, 1963), Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, 1977), Maggie Smith ( California Suite, 1978), Peggy Ashcroft ( A Passage to India, 1984), Judi Dench ( Shakespeare in Love, 1998), Catherine Zeta-Jones ( Chicago, 2002), Rachel Weisz ( The Constant Gardener, 2005), and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, 2007). However, it's 16 years since a British actress last won this award.
That's a drop in the ocean for Jodie Foster, however, whose deft display as coach and companion Bonnie Stoll in Nyad means that she is up for Best Supporting Actress for the first time in 47 years, when she was nominated for Taxi Driver at the age of 14 years and 86 days. Astonishingly, this only makes her the 10th youngest nominee, with Tatum O'Neal still the outright winner at 10 years and 106 days for Paper Moon (1973). Foster has taken the record for the longest gap between nominations in an acting category off Judd Hirsch for Ordinary People (1980) and The Fabelmans (2022), as well as establishing the biggest gap between nominations in a single category by besting Kristine Samuelson, who had waited 45 years to follow the Best Documentary Short nomination for Arthur and Lillie (1976) with Life Overcomes Me (2020), each of which she co-directed.
Foster could also make LGBTQIA+ history by becoming the first out actress to win three acting Oscars. This is Foster's fifth nomination, to go with Best Actress nods for The Accused, The Silence of the Lambs, and Nell (1994). Should she prevail, she would stand also alongside Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet, 1931; Airport, 1970), Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight, Anastasia, Murder on the Orient Express, 1974), Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; California Suite), Meryl Streep (Sophie's Choice, The Iron Lady, Kramer vs Kramer), Jessica Lange ( Blue Sky, 1994; Tootsie), Cate Blanchett ( Blue Jasmine, 2013; The Aviator), and Renée Zellwegger (Judy; Cold Mountain, 2003) for having won the Academy Award in each actress category.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
And that concludes our round-up of the major categories on the Oscar ballot. In all, 321 films were deemed eligible for inclusion across the categories. The Academy has had its say. Now it's up to you to have yours on all 23 categories!
To take part in this competition, all you have to do is tell us who you think will win each category at the 96th Academy Awards.
Whoever correctly predicts the highest number of winners will receive SIX MONTHS of free rentals from CinemaParadiso.co.uk.
In the result of a tie, the top predictors will be entered in a draw to find ONE lucky winner.
The competition will close at 12:00 on Sunday 10 March 2024 and the winner will be announced on Monday 11 March 2024.
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