Until the up-too-early hosts read the Oscar nominations each year, it’s never totally clear what stories will define the race. But after Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan made their announcements at 5am PST sharp this morning, it’s clear that Netflix’s Power of the Dog is the film to beat, with a whopping 12 nominations. There were plenty of other surprises (Nightmare Alley, who could’ve guessed?) and polarizing inclusions (Don’t Look Up is Film Twitter’s own personal comet) to make this an interesting Oscar season. Let’s break down the highlights.
The Best Actress race is wide open. No nomination is a sure thing but it certainly seemed likely that Lady Gaga would pick up a Best Actress nomination for House of Gucci. She was nominated three years ago for A Star is Born and picked up several awards and nominations heading into the day, including a surprise Best Actress honor from the New York Film Critics Circle. Also, she’s very good in a demanding role that puts her at the center of most scenes. None of that apparently mattered, however, leaving the category without an obvious frontrunner. (The Academy seemed fairly soft on House of Gucci overall. It picked up only one nomination, for Makeup and Hairstyling, but an expected nomination for Jared Leto failed to materialize. Even its costumes got overlooked.)
That’s bad news for Gaga but potentially good news for Kristen Stewart, whose intense work in Diana didn’t seem like a shoo-in prior to the announcement. Nor does the category itself look to have a shoo-in. She’s up against Jessica Chastain, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, and Nicole Kidman. Of the bunch, Kidman seems the most likely winner—she’s a beloved actress playing another beloved actress in a biopic, which the Academy historically favors. But that could change as voters catch up with Colman’s extraordinary work in The Lost Daughter.
Two couples could walk away with his-and-hers trophies. Cruz is terrific in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers. She seems like a long shot to win, but if she does, it’s one of two possible scenarios in which spouses walk away with matching prizes for the first time: Cruz’s husband Javier Bardem is nominated for Best Actor for Being the Ricardos. And, over in the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories, both Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons picked up nominations for The Power of the Dog. Will either couple do what Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, and other famous acting couples never could? (Probably not. Neither Bardem nor Cruz look like likely winners and Plemons is up against a breakout turn from co-star Kodi Smit-McPhee. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it?)
The Power of the Dog could give Netflix its first Best Picture win. Netflix has made hard pushes to win the Best Picture prize for years with films like Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and others. This year looks like the service’s best shot to date. Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog picked up 12 nominations, more than any other film, including nods for Best Supporting Actor (two, as mentioned above), Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Director. (Campion is the first woman to be nominated for that prize more than once–her previous nomination was for The Piano–and currently appears to be the frontrunner.) That’s a lot of nominations, which always helps build momentum for any film attempting to claim the top prize.
Do people like Don’t Look Up? Speaking of Netflix, one of the great questions of this awards season has revolved around Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s environmental disaster satire. Reviews were generally harsh, but that didn’t stop the film from remaining in the awards discussion, and it broke viewing records on Netflix, at least according to the company’s somewhat opaque measurements. Don’t Look Up received nods in the Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Editing, and Score categories. But stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence went unnoticed and it remains one of the year’s most divisive films. Will it be remembered as a sharp satire critics didn’t get, or a too-obvious, not-funny-enough act of scolding? That’s for history to determine (assuming climate change leaves anyone around to remember it at all.)
The Academy continues to look beyond English language films (at least up to a point). In 2020, Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite won Best Picture, a first time for a film not in English (not counting “Jessica, only child, Illinois, Chicago”). In one of this year’s most surprising (and well deserved) nominations, Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s meditative, epic-in-length, and gripping Drive My Car picked up a Best Picture nomination alongside nods for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature. Elsewhere, Joachim Trier’s Worst Person in the World picked up a Best International Feature nomination (expected) and a Best Original Screenplay nomination (less expected). Still, though Penélope Cruz is competing in the Best Actress category, it would be nice to see Worst Person’s Renate Reinsve in the mix, too, not to mention members of the Drive My Car cast or Agathe Rousselle’s performance in Titane. (That last one was never going to happen but, hey, it would have been cool.)
Flee received just about every nomination possible. Is Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee an animated feature, a documentary feature, or an international feature? How about all of the above: Rasmussen’s category-defying film uses animation to tell the true story of the director’s longtime friend’s tortuous path from Afghanistan to Denmark, a journey that forced him to hide his identity in more ways than one. It’s a great movie (and one we predicted you’d be hearing about last year) and the Academy seemed happy to nominate it in as many categories as possible.
It won’t be a West Side Story sweep. The same can’t be said of Steven Spielberg’s remarkable West Side Story remake. It picked up eight nominations, second only to The Power of the Dog, including nods for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Ariana DeBose’s breakout work. But Mike Faist, another standout, remained nomination-less. So did Rita Moreno and Rachel Zegler’s star-making turn as Maria. Though it once seemed like the film to beat, it now looks like less of a powerhouse. So-so box office performance probably didn’t help.
Nightmare Alley was not forgotten. A similarly tepid response didn’t hurt Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. It picked up four nominations, including one for Best Picture. Star Bradley Cooper, on the other hand, is not in the running for Best Actor despite delivering one of his best performances. He can lament with Nicolas Cage, whose comeback work in Pig was similarly overlooked.
Diane Warren will always receive a Best Original Song nomination no matter what movie that song appears in. Remember the song “Somehow You Do” from the film Four Good Days? Ever heard of the movie Four Good Days, an addiction drama starring Glenn Close and Mila Kunis? It doesn’t matter. Diane Warren wrote a song for it and, as usual, received a nomination.
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom has the best title of any of this year’s nominees. Little seen but well-liked, the Bhutanese drama Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom follows a teacher who’s sent to a remote town to complete his training. It may not win the Best International Feature award, but no film this year has a more amusing title.