After a tumultuous film year marred by strikes and work stoppages, the Academy Awards showered nominations on Tuesday on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, Oppenheimer, which came away with a leading 13 nominations.
Nolan’s three-hour opus, viewed as the best picture front runner, received nods for best picture; Nolan’s direction; acting nominations for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jnr and Emily Blunt; and multiple honours for the craft of Nolan’s J. Robert Oppenheimer drama.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie wasn’t far behind with eight nominations, including nods for best picture; Ryan Gosling for best supporting actor; and two best-song candidates in What Was I Made For and I’m Just Ken. But Gerwig was surprisingly left out of the best director field.
Both Martin Scorsese’s Osage epic Killers of the Flower Moon and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff Poor Things were also widely celebrated. Poor Things landed 11 nods, while Killers of the Moon was nominated for 10 Oscars.
Lily Gladstone, star of Killers of the Flower Moon, became the first Native American nominated for best actress. For the 10th time, Scorsese was nominated for best director. Leonardo DiCaprio, though, was left out of best actor.
Those four contenders made for a maximalist quartet of Oscar heavyweights. Nolan’s sprawling biopic. Gerwig’s near-musical. Scorsese’s pitch-black Western. Lanthimos’ sumptuously designed fantasy.
Each utilised a wide spectrum of cinematic tools to tell big, often disturbing big-screen stories. And each – even Apple’s biggest-budgeted movie yet, Killers of the Flower Moon – had robust theatrical releases that saved streaming for months later.
Selected categories
Best picture
Best director
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Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
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Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
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Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
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Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
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Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Best actor
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Bradley Cooper, Maestro
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Colman Domingo, Rustin
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Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
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Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
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Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Best actress
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Annette Bening, Nyad
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Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
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Sandra Huller, Anatomy of a Fall
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Carey Mulligan, Maestro
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Emma Stone, Poor Things
Best supporting actor
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Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
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Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
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Robert Downey Jnr, Oppenheimer
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Ryan Gosling, Barbie
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Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
Best supporting actress
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Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
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Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
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America Ferrera, Barbie
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Jodie Foster, Nyad
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Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Best international film
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Society of the Snow, Spain
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The Zone of Interest, United Kingdom
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The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany
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Io Capitano, Italy
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Perfect Days, Japan
Best animated film
The Associated Press notched its first Oscar nomination in the news organisation’s 178-year history with 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov’s harrowing chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and of the last international journalists left there after the Russia invasion. It was nominated for best documentary. It is a joint production between Associated Press and PBS’ Frontline.
Best documentary
Oscar season has reunited Oppenheimer with its summer box-office partner, Barbie. Greta Gerwig’s feminist blockbuster, easily the biggest hit of the year with more than US$1.4 billion in ticket sales, shouldn’t be far behind Oppenheimer.
Historically, blockbusters have helped fuel Oscar ratings. Though the pile-up of award shows (an after-effect of last year’s strikes) could be detrimental to the Academy Awards, the Barbenheimer presence could help lift the March 10 telecast on ABC.
Jimmy Kimmel is returning as host, with the ceremony moved up an hour, to 7pm Eastern Time.
