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In a year when moviegoers returned en masse to big-budget spectacles — and skipped nearly everything else — Oscar voters on Tuesday spread nominations remarkably far and wide. Three blockbusters made the best picture cut, eight films received at least five nominations and first-time nominees filled 16 of the 20 acting slots.
“It’s a broad group, which is thrilling and evidence of a changing academy,” said Gail Berman, a producer of “Elvis,” which received eight nominations, including one for best picture. “I’m particularly thrilled that there are populist movies like ours in there. They’re big and they’re fun — Baz Luhrmann is the very DNA of ‘Elvis’ — and they remind people what they love about going to the movies.”
The universe-hopping “Everything Everywhere All at Once” had the most nominations, with 11, including ones for best picture, actress (Michelle Yeoh), supporting actress (Stephanie Hsu), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan) and director (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a dark comedy about a frayed friendship, and the German-language “All Quiet on the Western Front” each had nine; they were also recognized for best picture.
The blockbuster sequels “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” with $3.5 billion in combined ticket sales worldwide, were included in the best picture category. An ultrasophisticated drama (“Tár),” a memory piece from Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans),” a sexual assault drama set in an isolated religious community (“Women Talking”) and a satire of the wealthy from a Swedish filmmaker (“Triangle of Sadness”) filled out the category.
In some ways, spreading nominations widely reflected the jumbled state of Hollywood. No one in the movie capital seems to know which end is up, with streaming services like Netflix hot then not, and studios unsure about how many films to release in theaters and whether anything but superheroes, sequels and horror stories can succeed.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has about 10,000 members, has also worked to diversify its ranks by gender, race and nationality. The inclusion of multiple blockbusters could signal that voting members of have finally decided to help the Oscars show by widening the best picture aperture. In 2009, academy leaders expanded the nominee pool to 10 from five. The audience for the ceremony was in decline, and more slots would make room for a broader range of films, perhaps even populist movies — or so academy officials hoped. Voters had mostly just doubled down on little-seen art films.
The 2022 show drew 16.6 million viewers, the second-worst turnout on record after the pandemic-affected 2021 telecast. If the Nielsen ratings do not improve, the academy faces a financial precipice: Most of its revenue comes from the sale of broadcasting rights to the show. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
ABC will broadcast the 95th ceremony live on March 12.
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“Everything Everywhere All at Once” — the newfangled time-twisting film which topped all films with 11 nominations on Tuesday — picked up three in the supporting actor categories. Ke Huy Quan landed a best supporting actor nod, and Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu were each in the race for best supporting actress. Along with best picture, its nominations also included the costume design category, a surprise, and music. Its original score, by Son Lux, beat out music by the past Oscar winners Hildur Gudnadottir (“Women Talking”) and Alexandre Desplat (“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”) for a nomination.
“Pinocchio” was nominated in the best animated film category.
Angela Bassett became the first actor from a Marvel film to be nominated, recognized for her supporting role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Brian Tyree Henry was a surprise addition in the supporting actor category for his role in “Causeway,” while Hong Chau was nominated in the supporting actress category for her role in “The Whale.”
Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” made the best picture lineup, and its adapted screenplay was nominated.
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The #OscarsSoWhite outcries from 2015 and 2016, prompted by all-white slates of acting nominees, continue to reverberate at the academy, which has been trying to diversify its membership by race, gender and nationality. In 2021, nine of the 20 acting nominations went to people of color. Last year, it was four.
This time around seven actors of color were nominated. Michelle Yeoh was chosen for the best actress lineup for playing a Chinese immigrant who discovers that she can jump between universes in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Ana de Armas nabbed a nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the polarizing “Blonde.”
In a surprise, Danielle Deadwyler (“Till”) and Viola Davis (“The Woman King”) were both omitted from the best actress category.
Yeoh’s co-star Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere”) received a supporting actor nomination. The former child actor is a favorite in the field, which also includes Brian Tyree Henry, for his role as a mechanic suffering trauma after an auto accident in “Causeway.”
Angela Bassett became the first actress in a Marvel movie to receive a nomination, for her regal “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” performance. She was joined by Stephanie Hsu, for her role as Yeoh’s daughter in “Everything Everywhere,” and Hong Chau, who played a stern caregiver in “The Whale.” Left out were Dolly de Leon, for her scene-stealing role as a cleaner on a luxury cruise ship in “Triangle of Sadness,” and Janelle Monáe, for her two roles in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”
The only person of color in the directing category was Daniel Kwan (“Everything Everywhere”), who was recognized along with his partner, Daniel Scheinert. All of the other nominees were white men. For decades, women and people of color were almost entirely excluded from the directing race. In 2021, for the first time, two women were nominated: Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), with Zhao winning. Last year, Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) won the Oscar for directing.
This year, Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) was left out even though her film was nominated for best picture. (Polley received a nomination for best adapted screenplay.) “The Woman King,” directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and starring Davis, was snubbed completely by the academy, as was “Till,” which was directed by Chinonye Chukwu, a Nigerian American.
Mandy Walker became the third woman ever nominated for best cinematographer, for her work on “Elvis,” following Rachel Morrison (“Mudbound”) and Ari Wegner (“The Power of the Dog”). No woman has ever won.
The Projectionist
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The sci-fi hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once” led the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, but many other presumed contenders fell startlingly short. As your Projectionist, here are the top headlines from my analysis of Tuesday morning’s biggest surprises and omissions.
A record-setting year for Asian actors.
Though two of the last three best-picture winners were directed by Asian filmmakers, the academy isn’t always as forward-thinking when it comes to nominating Asian performers. But Tuesday’s nomination haul, which saw “Everything Everywhere” cast members Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu all making the cut alongside “The Whale” supporting actress Hong Chau, set a record for the most Asian actors ever nominated in a single year.
Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler miss out.
Andrea Riseborough’s rise for her performance in “To Leslie” brought the best-actress hopes of two other contenders to an abrupt end: “The Woman King” star Viola Davis and “Till” actress Danielle Deadwyler were both shut out of a best actress category that many pundits assumed would be mostly made up of women of color.
The Projectionist
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On Tuesday morning, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh and their “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert met on a video call to watch the announcement of the Oscar nominations together, and as the sci-fi hit racked up each of its stunning 11 nominations, the group would toast, gasp, cheer and yell.
“It was so loud, we could barely hear what anyone was saying,” said a laughing Quan, who received his first Oscar nomination Tuesday for playing Waymond Wang, the sweet-natured husband to Yeoh’s multiverse-saving laundromat owner. How did he react when his name was read?
“I was jumping up and down, screaming at the top of my voice, exactly the same way that I did when I got the phone call from my agent that the Daniels wanted me to play Waymond,” Quan said during a phone interview conducted a half hour after the announcement. He described Tuesday as one of the happiest days of his life. “It’s so surreal. I am ecstatic.”
“Everything Everywhere” represents a major career comeback for Quan, who rose to fame as a child actor in films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” but quit acting for decades when he found roles for an Asian actor hard to come by. While watching “Crazy Rich Asians” in 2018, Quan began to mull a return, and two weeks after asking an agent friend to represent him, he was sent “Everything Everywhere” and went out on his first audition in years.
Now, he’s Oscar-nominated for it, and alongside Yeoh, his co-star Stephanie Hsu, and “The Whale” actress Hong Chau, history has been made: There have never been so many actors of Asian descent nominated in the same year.
“I’ve been watching the Oscars for more than 30 years now, and every single year, I would imagine myself being on the red carpet, being in that room with everybody,” Quan said. “Of course, as the years went by, the chance of it ever becoming true slowly dissipated. And when I stepped away from acting for so long, I didn’t think that dream would ever come back. So to be here today, to hear the announcement, it is so unbelievably surreal. It’s crazy, and I’m speechless.”
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Like the “CODA” star Troy Kotsur last year, Quan has cruised through the season picking up every supporting-actor trophy in sight, from the Gothams to the Golden Globes to the Critics Choice Awards. It’s an outcome he never could have foreseen when he wrapped the film in early 2020 and then, over the pandemic, failed to book even a single follow-up role.
“That year and a half was horrible because every tape we would send in, we would get no response back,” he said. “I was so afraid I was going to lose my health insurance. I called my agent, saying, ‘Get me anything, it doesn’t matter what, I need to make the minimum to get health insurance.’”
But Quan’s taped auditions still came to naught, and he lost his insurance just a few months before “Everything Everywhere” came out in March 2021. “I was so dispirited,” he said, remembering a desperate call he placed to “Everything Everywhere” producer Jonathan Wang: “I said, ‘You’ve seen the movie. Can you please tell me, am I any good in it?’ He said, ‘Ke, why are you asking such a stupid question?’ And I said, ‘Because nobody wants to hire me.’ And Jonathan says, ‘Well, you just wait. Just wait until the movie comes out.’”
Since then, Quan said, it’s been a sea change in how he’s been perceived. People who used to stop him on the street and ask, “Are you the kid from ‘Indiana Jones’?” now recognize him as Waymond from “Everything Everywhere,” and he will soon be seen in Season 2 of “Loki” and the forthcoming series “American Born Chinese.”
“It’s been the greatest, wildest ride,” said Quan, who was eager to celebrate the day’s success with his wife, Echo — “We didn’t think a day like this would ever, ever happen” — and to call family members who had stuck by him and sent proud texts all through awards season.
“For so many years, they were so worried about me,” he said. “To see how happy they are means the world to me, so I just want to spend the day with my family.”
As I brought our call to a close, something new dawned on Quan, and he began to talk … well, all at once.
“Kyle! From this day forward, I will always be ‘Oscar-nominated actor Ke Huy Quan’!” he said. “How great is that? Oh my gosh, I see it all the time when I go watch trailers, when people talk about actors — ‘Oscar-nominated actor Leonardo DiCaprio.’ It sounds so nice. And now, my name is going to sound like that, too.”
He laughed in disbelief. “Awesome!” Quan said.
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Angela Bassett made Marvel history Tuesday morning as the first star (and woman of color) in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film to receive an Oscar nomination in a comic-book adaptation. She has been nominated before — she was up for lead actress nearly three decades ago for the Tina Turner biopic “What’s Love Got to Do With It” — but said she was humble and grateful to be recognized for her supporting role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
“I’m very excited about it because I know that it’s been 30 years,” Bassett said. “So it’s not easy to come by landing in just these five coveted slots.”
All season long, Bassett has been honored for her work in the film: She took home a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award for supporting actress earlier this month and is in the running for an NAACP Image Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a BAFTA Award.
As Queen Ramonda, who becomes the sovereign ruler of the Wakanda kingdom after the death of her son, King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), she is tasked with protecting the Afrofuturist nation from outside threats posed by neighboring countries and the underwater nation Talokan, led by the demigod Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía).
Although the comic-book adaptation did not receive a best picture nomination like 2018’s “Black Panther,” it did receive nods in the costume design, makeup and hairstyling, original song and visual effects categories.
In a video interview from her Los Angeles home, Bassett discussed mourning Chadwick Boseman’s death, her own character’s death and the glee she felt over her second Oscar nomination. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Where were you when you heard about the nominations?
You knew Super Tuesday was on its way. So I set my alarm for 5:25 a.m. I think I went down about 11 p.m. and woke up at 3:45 a.m. on my own, and tried, tried tried to go back to sleep and just couldn’t. The spigot turned on adrenaline and just flooded me.
They say when you can’t sleep, get out of bed and walk around in the dark. So I was like, “But what time is it?” and looked at the clock. It’s 5:25 a.m. [a few minutes before the nominations would be announced on the West Coast]. I was trying to turn the television on, and I couldn’t figure it out. I thought I was going to miss it. I just could not figure out how to get my television on. But finally I did and when it started, it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, the first category!” I’m glad I showed up on time.
This film has an undeniable feminine energy, from the moments where you refer to the nation of Wakanda with “she” pronouns to the introduction of tech prodigy Riri Williams, played by Dominique Thorne. How does this film empower young Black girls?
I’m very proud that the film focuses and is led by Black women. It’s not the first time for me, the same is true of “Waiting to Exhale” [1995], that was a first and led by four Black women. I suppose I’ve been in this position before. So I’m comfortable with it, I’m thrilled by it and I hope it will teach Black girls, we’re winning. We can win.
The film and its creative team lost Chadwick Boseman, Wakanda’s leader, to cancer in 2020. How did you handle his death and translate your grief onscreen? What would Chadwick think of the film?
I handled that with a great deal of pride and love and respect for who he was and who he is. This was not the moment to fall down, but this was to use all of that love, all those emotions that we felt for him, all those memories that we have of him, and to put it into the work and to make it, hopefully, as special as he is. That’s no less than what he would have done and what he would have wanted for us.
Your character drowns during an attack led by Namor. What was it like filming that scene?
That scene, well thankfully, the water was warm. The girls were there, Lupita [Nyong’o], Danai [Gurira]. I was prepared for that day, of course, you knew it was coming up. It wasn’t as sad as it was the day I reckoned it was going to occur. That’s for sure.
As we look at your lifelong acting career, how do you feel about this being your second nomination?
I am ecstatic over it, but there’s also part of me that maintains that I must keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, on terra firma, on Earth. It’s been a journey of hard work, wonderful opportunity. Saying yes to what excites you about the work and individuals, and it will always continue to be that way.
These awards are a fantastic gift from your peers in your community and this certainly is the apex of it.But I know I’m thankful that I still have to get up this morning, get in my car and drive myself to the set and put in the work with my colleagues today. So, I can’t sit around heaven all day.
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Michelle Yeoh was on a Zoom call on Tuesday with her “Everything Everywhere All at Once” family — including her co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan and James Hong and the directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan — when she got the news that had her “bursting with joy”: She was nominated for best actress for her performance as the cantankerous laundromat owner in the film, a sci-fi acid trip through time, space and human experience.
“We want to hold each other’s hands, even though they’re in America and I’m now in Paris, and so we’ve been screaming at the top of our heads,” she said by phone shortly after the nominations were announced. It’s no wonder: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” led the day with 11 nominations, including best picture.
Should she win, Yeoh — who was born in Malaysia and became a movie star in Asia before crossing over worldwide in films like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) and “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018) — would become the first Asian woman to win a lead actress Oscar. (She won her first Golden Globe earlier this month.)
“Ninety-five years of Oscars,” she said. “Of course, I’m over the moon, but I feel a little sad because I know we know there have been amazing actresses from Asia that come before me, and I stand on their shoulders.” She added, “I hope this will shatter that frigging glass ceiling to no end, that this will continue, and we will see more of our faces up there.”
Yeoh, 60, said that the film, which was released last March and went on to become a surprise box office success amid the pandemic, resonated in part because it came “at a time where we all needed to be healed.”
She explained, “We’ve gone through such a crazy, chaotic time in our life, and we all needed something to fill us with hope and ensure us that as long as we can show each other kindness and compassion and love and never give up on your family.”
Hope was top of mind for the actress, who earlier in the week responded to the mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., an Asian American community where Lunar New Year celebrations were taking place. “At a time when our community should be celebrating new beginnings, we are now mourning,” she posted on Instagram.
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When asked about her nomination at a time of sadness, she said, “One thing that we all need always is hope,” adding, “We always need to be able to hold up our heads and move forward. All our hearts are so broken for what’s happened in Monterey Park.”
At the heart of the movie is a fraught mother-daughter relationship, two characters who are both struggling to navigate very different everyday realities (and very different interdimensional nonrealities). It didn’t surprise Yeoh that this dynamic resonated with so many viewers, but she has been touched by its power to heal. Older women have come up to her to say that while they didn’t understand the film, it’s helped their relationships with their daughters.
Yeoh recalled one viewer who told of her estranged daughter contacting her after years of not talking. “We have now bonded and we have a relationship because of your movie,” Yeoh remembered the woman saying. “Sometimes when a movie like this comes along and you feel that you’ve healed people, that is such an amazing award.”
For Yeoh, a former stuntwoman who has been working in the industry for decades, “Everything” was a showcase for her many talents. Reflecting on her long career can be bittersweet, she said, “but then, at the other times, it’s like, I love what I do. I have this great passion for film acting and all that. So it’s like, you don’t do it for the awards. You do it because you want to put what is best out there.”
“But of course, please frigging give me the Oscar, man,” she said, laughing. “It’s just a tribute to saying, never give up. If you believe in yourself, you just never give up. It took me 40 years, but it’s here.”
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It has been a tremendously emotional month for Austin Butler, who on Tuesday was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his captivating, and often haunting, performance as the title character in Baz Luhrmann’s fever dream of a biopic, “Elvis.”
Exactly two weeks ago, Butler accepted the best actor Golden Globe for the role, as Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley sat in the audience, enamored and touched. Just two days later, Lisa Marie died at the age of 54.
“It’s been a roller coaster lately — a lot of peaks and these deep valleys of sorrow and things, but moments like this are very special and so I’m trying to take it in,” Butler, 31, said by phone shortly after the announcement on Tuesday. “But there is that thing where I wish Lisa Marie was here right now to get to be a part of it and celebrate this.”
With her death, the project has taken on even more meaning for the actor. “It definitely has filled me with a lot of appreciation for every moment that I got to spend with her,” Butler said. “And just how lucky I was to get the type of experiences that I had with her, very private moments and that sort of thing, that I’ll just cherish for the rest of my life.”
He added, “I grew to love Elvis so much — really, really deeply, where he feels like one of my best friends or like a family member.”
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Landing the highly coveted role was in many ways intimidating for Butler, a relative newcomer to the big screen who beat out household names like Harry Styles and Ansel Elgort. “I had to overcome so much fear in order to just be able to take the steps because it felt like climbing an impossible mountain at times.”
What he found “deeply terrifying” was thinking about “so many ways in which it could have gone wrong,” he said, recalling that some things did go wrong, like the production being shut down because of the pandemic.
As for how it felt to have not only pulled it off, but to be recognized at the highest levels, he described it as surreal. “I mean, it really feels like a dream,” he said. “In moments like this, I really try to touch back into what it felt like to make the movie because so much time has passed now that it almost feels like a distant memory, you know?”
“I just feel so proud of everybody,” he went on, a reference to the eight Oscar nominations, including best picture, the film received on Tuesday.
After Butler’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, social media was abuzz over how much the actor, who has a distinctly deep voice, now sounded like the real rocker he played, raising questions as to whether his accent had changed since filming. On the phone, he had a deep drawl that was Elvis-y but not as Elvis-y as at the Globes. “It’s one of those things, I don’t hear it in my own voice,” he said with a chuckle.
He added that his tone had deepened over time, thanks to voice work and other projects. “It’s like when I have friends who’ve lived in other countries for a long time and then they come back and bits of the accent have soaked into them,” he said. “That’s kind of what I think of it, and it’s slips out in moments when you least expect it.”
On how the film has helped introduce younger generations — who don’t necessarily feel as close to the rock star as past generations — to the phenomenon of Elvis, Butler said he found it “incredibly moving” to build that bridge: “I feel so privileged to be part of his legacy in that way.”
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It was Andrea Riseborough’s teary-eyed partner who alerted her to the news: She’d been nominated for her first Oscar, for best actress, for her performance as a troubled onetime lottery winner in the microbudget indie “To Leslie.”
“It’s sort of surreal,” Riseborough, 41, said. She will compete alongside such well-known names as Cate Blanchett (“Tár”), Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”), Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Ana de Armas (“Blonde”). “There’s a large part of me that’s really unable to accept that it’s happened.”
The film, which according to BoxOfficeMojo made just $27,322 after a limited October release, has been seen by approximately no one — with the exception of some of Riseborough’s very famous friends.
Dozens of actors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton and Sarah Paulson took to social media in recent weeks to trumpet their enthusiastic support of Riseborough’s performance — just as voting for the Oscar nominations began.
“Andrea should win every award there is and all the ones that haven’t been invented yet,” Paltrow captioned an Instagram photo of herself; Riseborough; the film’s director, Michael Morris (“Better Call Saul”); and Demi Moore on Jan. 11 following a screening.
Norton (“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”) wrote on Instagram that Riseborough’s portrayal “knocked me sideways.”
“It’s about the most fully committed, emotionally deep, physically harrowing performance I’ve seen in a while,” he wrote of the actress’s performance as an alcoholic, manipulative mother in West Texas.
Blanchett even used her acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards to give a shoutout for Riseborough’s performance. “It is arbitrary considering how many extraordinary performances there have been by women, not only in this room,” she said. “Andrea Riseborough, Tang Wei, Penélope Cruz, the list goes on and on and on.”
Critics also showered praise on the film, which has a 98 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though it was largely passed over at awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards. Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Beandrea July wrote that Riseborough “gives a deft performance” in the film, which she called a “deceptively simple yet heart-wrenching character study.” (It was Morris’s feature directorial debut.)
“The most exciting thing about this moment is that so many more people are going to see this film,” said Riseborough, who is known for her chameleonic work in “Birdman” and “W.E.”
In a phone conversation on Tuesday afternoon from London, where she is shooting the HBO limited series “The Palace,” a political satire about a year in an unraveling authoritarian regime, the British actress discussed the groundswell of support from her famous friends, what appealed to her about the role, and the performance this year by another actor that has moved her the most. Here are excerpts from the conversation.
Congratulations! Were you watching the nominations?
My other half, Karim [Saleh], was watching them — I try not to think too much about it, if you know what I mean. And then he saw it on the screen and just burst into tears.
How much did you expect to be nominated?
Not at all. Even if there’s support for a film or a performance, it’s very difficult to even comprehend being included in the conversation when you’ve not been part of the other conversations — the Critics Choice Awards and SAG — the things that we all celebrate and that we look toward to direct us.
What has it been like to see so many of your friends get behind the film?
The thing that feels most exciting is being acknowledged by your community. It’s a marker by which we measure ourselves in so many ways — by those we aspire to be like, or those we admire. So it’s huge. A wonderful, warm feeling of being supported and recognized.
How did you get involved in the film?
Michael Morris, the director, and I had worked together on “Bloodline,” and a couple of years later he brought this script to me, by Ryan Binaco, a brilliant young screenwriter who had written a love song to his mother. Immediately I knew that I wanted to make that film and two years later, we did — after a good, long stewing period of not being able to get it financed. We shot it in 19 days, and it was all one or two takes, mostly, because we didn’t have a lot of time. By the time we got to actually making it, it felt like an explosion, because it had been in our bones for so long.
What appealed to you about the role?
A character like Leslie, once she gets inside you, you can’t really shake her off. All of us have been in the orbit of a Leslie, or felt very much like we identify with her and the way she lets down those she loves over and over again. So she’s quite a large character to let into your consciousness, for all of us — I don’t just mean for me playing her, for everybody on the film, cast and crew.
She’s relatable, even when she’s doing terrible things.
When I read the screenplay, I didn’t feel that it was telling me how I should feel about the character or whether I should judge her. When I talk to people who haven’t watched the film, they can identify with her even though she’s letting herself and the people she loves down in so many ways.
So many people have been shouting out this film lately. Are there any other films or performances from the past year you’ve been especially moved by?
I really, really loved John Douglas Thompson in “Till.”
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For the last three years, Netflix has received more Oscar nominations than any other company, underscoring the rise of streaming services in Hollywood, especially as a platform for sophisticated films. This year, however, Netflix lost the most-nominated crown to the Walt Disney Company, in part because two high-profile Netflix movies — “White Noise” and “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” — failed to gain much traction with critics and film festival audiences.
Disney-owned studios are behind “Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century), “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel) and “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight). Those three films collected a combined 18 nominations. In total, Disney racked up 22 nominations, including one for Pixar’s “Turning Red,” recognized for best animated film, and the volcano exploration film “Fire of Love” (National Geographic), which will compete in the best documentary race.
Netflix scored 16 (down from 27 last year), with the brutal “All Quiet on the Western Front” leading the way. Guillermo del Toro’s lavishly campaigned “Pinocchio” and “The Sea Beast” were nominated for best animated film. “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” got a nod for Rian Johnson’s adapted screenplay. And Ana de Armas was honored in the best actress category, for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in the controversy-stirring “Blonde.” (“Bardo” did receive one nomination, for best cinematography.)
Among the other big streaming services, Amazon’s Prime Video received one nomination, for “Argentina, 1985” as best international film. Apple TV+ had two, including the surprise nomination of Brian Tyree Henry, for his supporting role in “Causeway,” about the psychological toll of war.
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Will Smith, the reigning best actor winner, remains eligible to win Oscars (in absentia), and his team had hoped that academy voters would be so blown away by his volcanic performance in “Emancipation” that they would at least nominate him. Set during the Civil War and directed by Antoine Fuqua, “Emancipation” stars Smith as a man who escapes slavery and joins the Union Army to fight against his former captors. It arrived on Apple TV+ in December.
But it appears that Smith remains too toxic following his behavior at last year’s ceremony, when he marched onstage and slapped Chris Rock. “Emancipation” has been largely ignored by awards organizations, including Hollywood guilds, and the Oscars followed suit on Tuesday. None of the other artists involved in “Emancipation,” including Fuqua, fared any better.
As a result, Apple TV+ is only a minor player at the 2023 Oscars, represented by a surprise supporting actor nomination for Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) and a nod for the animated short “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.” It’s a wild swing from last year, when Apple triumphed with “CODA,” which became the first film from a streaming service to be named best picture.
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Last fall 93 countries submitted films for consideration in the best international feature film category at the Academy Awards. In late December, 15 of those advanced to a short list and now the field has been reduced to five finalists:
Germany’s War World I epic “All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, is the undisputed front-runner. The Netflix-produced picture by the director Edward Berger received a total of nine nominations including best picture and adapted screenplay.
Santiago Mitre’s “Argentina, 1985,” the only non-European film in the group and the first Latin American production nominated since Mexico’s “Roma” in 2019, was the subject of a substantial campaign by Amazon Prime Video all season long. The historical courtroom drama chronicles the Trial of the Juntas in the aftermath of the country’s military dictatorship.
Belgium’s intimate “Close,” about two 13-year-old boys whose loving friendship is thwarted by society’s expectations of masculinity, also made the cut. Touted as an Oscar contender when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, the film, directed by Lukas Dhont, opens in theaters Friday.
The peculiarly endearing Polish donkey saga “EO” by the veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski had already been a hit with critics’ groups, winning multiple prizes from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
From this batch of nominees, Ireland is the only nation cited for the very first time with the Irish-language drama “The Quiet Girl,” from Colm Bairead. A record-breaking box office hit at home and in Britain, this little movie that could examines parent-child relationships via an unassuming story.
— Carlos Aguilar
Almost everyone in Hollywood agrees that the Oscar ceremony is broken, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has — belatedly, given years of stops and starts — made fixing the telecast a six-alarm priority. The academy, which is under new management, had little choice after last year’s debacle, when Will Smith angrily slapped Chris Rock before going on to win the best actor trophy, stupefying viewers and embarrassing moviedom’s elite.
Specific plans for the show are still secret. So far, the academy has said that there will be a host (Jimmy Kimmel, who has done the job twice before) and that all 23 categories will be presented live. (Eight were sidelined to commercial breaks last year, in a futile effort to save time.) Unlike in previous years, the academy hired producers for the telecast who are actually experienced in making live television.
Fewer stars have attended the Oscars over the past decade, in part because they don’t want to sit through the marathon event. (Celebrities: They’re just like us!) Academy officials have said they plan to make a renewed push for A-list attendees. But one star — Smith — will not be invited, even though it is customary for best actor winners to return to present the Oscar for best actress. The academy barred him from attending for 10 years because of his “harmful behavior” toward Rock.
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Pop quiz: What are the three R’s?
They aren’t reduce, reuse, recycle — this awards season, one of the hottest topics of conversation has quickly become the Telugu-language Indian action spectacular “RRR,” or “Rise, Roar, Revolt,” which picked up an Oscar nomination for best song on Tuesday.
The movie, which stars two of India’s most popular actors — Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. — is set in Delhi during the early 1920s and follows two patriotic but philosophically opposed men who team up to rescue a kidnapped girl (Twinkle Sharma) from British colonial officials (Alison Doody and Ray Stevenson).
The film was already a worldwide box office success when it was released in March — it was directed by one of India’s most successful filmmakers, S.S. Rajamouli, with a whopping $72 million budget — and grossed $65 million during its opening weekend.
But now, it has become the rare Indian hit to catch on with American viewers outside the Indian diaspora, thanks to word-of-mouth social media buzz and an unusual theatrical rerelease strategy.
After the film, originally distributed by Sarigama Cinemas, initially played at 1,200 screens across the country in March — and began streaming on Netflix in late May — Dylan Marchetti, the president of the distributor Variance Films, saw its potential crossover appeal when he watched it repeatedly with enthusiastic audiences.
So Variance got in touch with Sarigama, and they took the rare step of relaunching the film — sold to moviegoers as an “encoRRRe” — which led to its breakthrough in the United States.
Speaking to The Times in August, Cristina Cacioppo, who programmed “RRR” at the Nitehawk Prospect Park in Brooklyn, said it drew moviegoers in the 20-to-30 age range, most from outside the Indian diaspora.
“There was an overall wave of joy throughout,” Cacioppo told The Times. “You could feel the room smiling, the jaws dropping.” (More than three hours of Charan and Rao wrestling tigers; pulling off a daring bridge rescue involving a motorcycle, a horse and a flaming train car; and schooling British partygoers as they dance in perfect synchronization in matching suspenders will do that.)
Josh Hurtado, a consultant at the independently run Potentate Films who collaborated with Sarigama and Marchetti on a one-night-only theatrical revival of “RRR” in June, told The Times that many attendees praised the film for the same reasons that had previously discouraged them from watching new Indian movies: “long run times, song and dance numbers, and ridiculous action” he said. “People come out saying they wish that this three-hour movie were longer.”
The film also gained a robust afterlife on TikTok, with its earwormy syncopated dance number “Naatu Naatu” (Telugu for “Native Native”), becoming a viral hit thanks to Charan and Rama Rao’s playful syncopated dance moves and infectious singing. (The lyrics are by Chandrabose, while M.M. Keeravani composed the music.)
After winning a Golden Globe for best original song earlier this month, as well as a Critics Choice Award for best foreign language film and a New York Film Critics Circle award for best director for Rajamouli, the film has its sights squarely trained on the big one: a best song Oscar for Charan and NTR Jr.’s joyous extravaganza of shoulder rolls, arm pumps and hook steps.
