The 95th Academy Award nominations have made their way to the forefront of the culture conversation as of Tuesday morning.
While some of the awards love was expected (Top Gun: Maverick! Everything Everywhere All at Once!), other beams of approval came with a bit of a surprise (All Quiet on the Western Front! To Leslie?!).
After Oscar winner Riz Ahmed and Girls alum Allison Williams revealed this year’s slate of nominees, it became clear that some films are in perfect positioning for easy awards. Others, however, will remain in the dark as campaigning continues on for the little gold men.
In a post-pandemic Academy landscape, anything is possible, and no race is settled.
Let’s look at 10 key takeaways from this year’s nominations and what they mean for the 95th ceremony and the Oscars as a whole.
The show itself will take place on Sunday, March 12.
1
Everything Everywhere All at Once is the frontrunner for Best Picture but isn't safe
After months of speculation and jockeying, the Best Picture race really doesn’t have a locked frontrunner to win right now.
While A24’s powerhouse Everything Everywhere All at Once led with 11 nominations and performed incredibly well across the board, the film still feels a bit vulnerable because of its far-out antics and how that might play to the “meat and potatoes” voters. The film is an atypical frontrunner compared to Best Picture winners of the past. Birdman‘s success in the 2014 awards season is probably the best recent barometer for an out-there film that seized the top prize.
Films like Top Gun: Maverick, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis could all push Everything Everywhere All at Once in the night’s biggest category. Like with CODA last year, films can break late and seize the momentum as the awards calendar has shifted a bit because of COVID. It’s too early to really coronate a film with how the season evolves, even if Everything Everywhere All at Once feels like the film to beat.
2
All Quiet on the Western Front's success speaks volumes
For a minute there, it seemed like Netflix might miss out on a coveted Best Picture nominee as films like White Noise, Blonde and Bardo failed to capture reception during the fall festival circuit.
It left Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery as the streamer’s best player, but that film only landed an Adapted Screenplay nomination. Enter All Quiet on the Western Front, which stormed out of nowhere and dominated guild honors before tying The Banshees of Inisherin for second in the Oscar nomination tally with nine.
The German-made film landed a coveted Best Picture nomination on top of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best International Feature recognition.
It also scored a bevy of attention in the craft categories, including Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
The World War I film (adapted from the Erich Maria Remarque novel of the same name) saw its source material’s first filmed adaptation win Best Picture way back at the 1929-30 Academy Awards ceremony. The awards lineage is strong for this movie, which now has a legacy of its own.
The film landing so heavily with this year’s Oscars demonstrates three things:
- The Academy still loves a good-old-fashioned war film.
- Having more international voters in the Oscar voting branches leads to more international films getting attention.
- Netflix is popping bottles that it didn’t goose egg in the Best Picture race after another rigorous campaigning season.
3
Best Actor is the most wide-open acting category
Good luck trying to feel confident in saying who will win Best Actor this year.
While Bill Nighy (Living) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) will just be happy to show up to the March ceremony, Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale) will make this the most intense Best Actor category in ages.
While Butler and Farrell won Golden Globes (immaterial in the grand scheme of things) and Fraser won the Critics’ Choice (ditto), all three represent popular narratives that drive people to wins.
Butler is the newcomer who delivered the real-life portrayal that Oscar voters go gaga for. Farrell is the respected veteran who may be “due” for a win. Fraser is the beloved nostalgia figure who is riding high on a comeback. Watching how the Screen Actors Guild category unfolds here will be key.
4
Top Gun: Maverick gets mixed results
With six nominations, Top Gun: Maverick‘s improbable Oscar run showed where it might be vulnerable in taking home a Best Picture award.
While snagging an Adapted Screenplay nomination was an unexpected boost, the film missed in Best Actor, Best Director and, more surprisingly, Best Cinematography. The film’s rapturous reception and immaculate box office haul helped propel it into the awards conversation, which would’ve seen bizarre to say a year ago.
Now, everyone involved with the film has to hope that voters would just want to reward it for what it meant for movie theaters and the industry as a whole.
While some have speculated it could be the secret frontrunner, Top Gun: Maverick may have to pull off some more high-flying heroics to take home the night’s top prize.
5
Where did Andrea Riseborough come from?
Unless you’re an Oscar nerd and began to see the scuttlebutt starting to bubble in the awards conversation, Andrea Riseborough’s nomination in Best Actress for To Leslie probably came as a shock.
A dedicated, passionate actor who has been working for some time, Riseborough probably has plenty of admirers among her peers. However, word started to circulate that people in the acting community were mounting a last-minute effort to secure Riseborough for the little-seen indie drama.
It seems like that campaign worked out quite nicely. Riseborough herself was shocked to see her name pop up on Tuesday morning.
While To Leslie is a very solid drama and Riseborough just stellar in the film, that word-of-mouth effort likely knocked out The Woman King‘s Viola Davis and Till‘s Danielle Deadwyler.
6
Marvel could be headed to its first acting Oscar win
After more than a decade of box office dominance and zeitgeist upheaval, the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t really gotten much love at the Academy Awards.
Even 2018’s Black Panther couldn’t secure an acting nomination among its Oscar successes. However, the film’s sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever looks to have the frontrunner in Best Supporting Actress.
Angela Bassett’s return to Wakanda as Queen Ramonda has earned the veteran actor some of the best reviews of her career. It is the performance in the film that most heavily shoulders the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman. Honoring Bassett could be the way the industry pays homage to those involved with the sequel for even being able to make it in the first place.
Bassett’s impressive career has never landed her much awards love, but that could change in a big way come March. It’d be a big win for Kevin Feige and the folks at Marvel, too.
7
Don't count out The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg had to be smiling with how his semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans performed on Oscar morning.
The film secured key love across the board with seven nominations, including ones in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design and Best Original Score.
While The Fabelmans didn’t light it up at the box office, it will find a much bigger audience now that it’s been minted by the Academy. Spielberg’s name alone will get more butts in seats as it most likely refocuses its exhibition strategy on the Oscar love. The film is also available at home on demand.
The family dramedy hearkens back to the Oscar films of old, the character-driven auteur vehicles that make people nostalgic for the past. Between that and Spielberg’s power, the film could hold steady after being crowned a frontrunner a bit too early after its Toronto Film Festival debut.
8
Bigger movies, higher ratings?
The Oscar ratings will undoubtedly be a topic of conversation around the show itself. It’s still one of the most-watched television events in any year, but the overall numbers have dwindled as the years have gone on.
However, with films like Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Batman earning multiple nominations a piece, the Academy will have to hope audiences want to tune in to see how those box office giants perform.
Maybe Jimmy Kimmel hosting will bring in more viewers, too? It remains to be seen just how big a boost this year’s Oscars will get, but it feels like it’ll be a more-watched ceremony than last year’s roughly 15 million viewers.
Getting back into the 20 million range would give the Academy a sigh of relief (and more incentive to nominate bigger movies).
9
RRR could have a major Oscar moment
While India’s smash-hit action epic RRR took the American film world by storm, it only registered one Oscar nomination in Best Original Song for the show-stopping “Naatu Naatu.”
Some wondered if the film’s fan base in Hollywood could get it in Best Picture and Best Director for S.S. Rajamouli, but the song has become the rallying cry for the film’s unexpected American success. India chose a different film for its Best International Feature submission, heightening the hope it’d get in elsewhere. However, it’s maybe the frontrunner in Best Original Song at the moment.
However, if the show features a performance of “Naatu Naatu,” it could incorporate Indian megastars N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan to recreate the electric song-and-dance number for a global moment at the Oscars. With RRR at the ready on Netflix, that could be the film’s way of reaching a far bigger audience.
10
Stray Observations
- Songwriter Diane Warren landed her 14th Best Original Song nomination on Tuesday, a category she has somehow never won outright since her first notice there in 1987. She just got an Honorary Oscar for her impressive career, but could “Applause” from the film Tell It Like a Woman do the trick in the category that has alluded her for so long?
- After no love in the acting race, Women Talking held on just long enough to secure Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay recognition. Look for the Academy to feel more incentive to reward Sarah Polley for her powerful drama after no women were nominated in Best Director (sigh).
- Triangle of Sadness earning love in Best Picture and Best Director shows how the overall industry has coronated Ruben Östlund as one of the new auteurs.
- Nope registering zero nominations continues to show how Jordan Peele refuses to be boxed in after winning Best Original Screenplay for Get Out a half-decade ago. Not recognizing Nope for anything will look silly down the road. C’est la vie.
- She Said looks to be this year’s biggest awards player that went home with no nominations. Spots in Best Supporting Actress for Carey Mulligan and in Best Adapted Screenplay felt possible, but just weren’t meant to be. The film’s tepid box office could be to blame.
