The Newsreader has dominated the 2024 Aacta awards nominations with the second season up for 15 prizes, alongside international hits Colin from Accounts and Deadloch, which snagged 10 nominations each.
Amazon Prime drama The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart has 12 nominations, including a best actress nomination for star Sigourney Weaver.
The ABC’s Newsreader is up for best drama series, and won lead acting nominations for stars Sam Reid and Anna Torv. Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving are also nominated for best lead actor in a drama, for their work in miniseries Bali 2002 and season two of Love Me respectively, alongside Tim Draxl for Aids musical drama In Our Blood, Travis Fimmel for crime drama Black Snow and Joel Lago for anthology series Erotic Stories.
Colin from Accounts and Deadloch have 10 nominations each, with the two comedies competing for best narrative comedy series alongside Fisk, Gold Diggers, Upright and Utopia.
Kate Box is nominated for best lead actress twice, for acting in a drama in Erotic Stories, and for her role in Deadloch, in the inaugural category for best acting in a comedy. In that new category, Box is up against husband and wife team Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, who are going head to head for their work in Colin from Accounts, along with their co-star Helen Thomson; Nina Oyama for Deadloch; Kitty Flanagan and Julia Zemiro for Fisk; and Celeste Barber for Wellmania.
In the film categories Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy, starring Cate Blanchett as a nun, leads the film nominees with 12 nominations including best film, best director, best lead actress for Blanchett and best lead actor for 11-year-old Aswan Reid, in his acting debut.
Horror film Talk to Me, a low-budget independent production directed by twins Danny and Michael Philippou that went on to make A$139m at the global box office, won 11 nominations including best film, lead actress for Sophie Wilde, supporting actor for Zoe Terakes, and best director for the Philippou brothers.
Shayda, the debut feature of director Noora Niasari, has nine nominations. The film, about an Iranian mother and her young daughter seeking protection in an Australian women’s shelter, is up for best director and screenplay, with acting nominations for the film’s central family, played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Osamah Sami, and Selina Zahednia, who was just six years old when the film was made. Shayda is Australia’s entry in the best international feature film category at next year’s Oscars.
Goran Stolevski’s gay romance Of An Age has five nominations, including two best actor nominations for the film’s leads Elias Anton and Thom Green. They are up against Simon Baker for Limbo, Phoenix Raei for The Rooster, Reid in The New Boy and Sami in Shayda.
Ego: The Michael Gudinski Story is up for best documentary, against John Farnham: Finding The Voice and This Is Going To Be Big, which follows a group of special needs children as they put on a Farnham musical at their school. Also in the category are documentaries Harley & Katya, about Indigenous Australian figure skater Harley Windsor and his Russian skating partner Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya; The Dark Emu Story, about Indigenous author Bruce Pascoe; The Giants, about the life of former Greens leader Bob Brown; The Last Daughter, following Indigenous director Brenda Matthews as she searches for her white foster family; and To Never Forget, about the Holocaust in Latvia.
The Aacta industry awards ceremony will take place on 8 February, while the major ceremony will take place on 10 February on the Gold Coast, during the four-day Aacta festival for film and television.
The 2024 Aacta nominations
Best Film
Of An Age
Shayda
Sweet As
Talk to Me
The New Boy
The Royal Hotel
Best lead actress in film
Zar Amir Ebrahimi – Shayda
Shantae Barnes-Cowan – Sweet As
Cate Blanchett – The New Boy
Julia Garner – The Royal Hotel
Sarah Snook – Run Rabbit Run
Sophie Wilde – Talk to Me
Best lead actor in film
Elias Anton – Of An Age
Simon Baker – Limbo
Thom Green – Of An Age
Phoenix Raei – The Rooster
Aswan Reid – The New Boy
Osamah Sami – Shayda
Best TV drama
Bay Of Fires
Black Snow
Bump
Erotic Stories
Love Me
The Newsreader
Best narrative comedy series
Colin from Accounts
Deadloch
Fisk
Gold Diggers
Upright
Utopia
Best miniseries
Bad Behaviour
In Our Blood
Safe Home
The Clearing
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
While The Men Are Away
Lead actress in a drama
Kate Box – Erotic Stories
Aisha Dee – Safe Home
Bojana Novakovic – Love Me
Teresa Palmer – The Clearing
Anna Torv – The Newsreader
Sigourney Weaver – The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Lead actor in a drama
Tim Draxl – In Our Blood
Travis Fimmel – Black Snow
Joel Lago – Erotic Stories
Sam Reid – The Newsreader
Richard Roxburgh – Bali 2002
Hugo Weaving – Love Me
Best acting in a comedy
Celeste Barber – Wellmania
Kate Box – Deadloch
Patrick Brammall – Colin from Accounts
Harriet Dyer – Colin from Accounts
Kitty Flanagan – Fisk
Nina Oyama – Deadloch
Helen Thomson – Colin from Accounts
Julia Zemiro – Fisk
