Early award season favourites Angelina Jolie (Maria), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), and Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl) were among the shock exclusions from this year’s Academy Award nominations, announced this morning.
Australian actor Guy Pearce (supporting actor for The Brutalist) made the cut, as did cinematographer Greig Fraser (Dune: Part Two), producers Adam Elliot and Liz Kearney (animated feature for Memoir of a Snail) and filmmaker Maya Gnyp (documentary short film, for I Am Ready, Warden).
Leading Australia’s Oscar charge … Guy Pearce in a scene from The Brutalist.Credit: A24
The nominations for the 97th annual Academy Awards were a mixture of surprises and safe bets, perhaps most notable for the inclusion of the year’s favourite film, Wicked, and its stars Cynthia Erivo (in the best actress category) and Ariana Grande (in the supporting actress category).
Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong, who played feuding brothers in the critically acclaimed HBO series Succession, will go head-to-head in the supporting actor category, Culkin for A Real Pain, and Strong for The Apprentice. Guy Pearce is competing in the same category.
But among the dramatic exclusions are Jolie, Kidman and Anderson, all of whom seemed solid bets for the best actress category. The Golden Globes, held earlier this month, did offer an early clue: all three were frontrunners, pipped at the post by Fernanda Torres for her performance in I’m Still Here.
Karla Sofía Gascón, who was nominated in the best actress category, is the first openly transgender person to be nominated in an acting category. Gascón, who stars in Emilia Pérez, was nominated for a Golden Globe and has also been nominated for Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and BAFTA awards.
Snubbed: Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, Nicole Kidman in Babygirl and Angelina Jolie in Maria.Credit: AP
The best actor category offered a clearer and safer field: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice). Notably overlooked, there was no love for Daniel Craig (Queer) or Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain).
Award season is split into two blocs. The first is composed of New York’s Gotham Awards, which gave their best picture award to A Different Man, and the journalist-voted awards: the New York Film Critics (The Brutalist), the Los Angeles Film Critics (Anora) and the Golden Globes (drama to The Brutalist; musical or comedy to Emilia Pérez).
The second bloc is a cluster of peer-voted awards: the Directors Guild and Producers Guild awards (both on February 8), the Writers Guild Awards (February 15), the BAFTA Film Awards (held in London, on February 16) and the Screen Actors Guild Awards (February 23).
The voting membership of those guilds more closely mirrors the voting membership of the Academy, so they generally offer more accurate insight into which directors, writers, actors and films might win on Oscar night.
Wicked finally steps into award season: nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Of those, the Producers Guild is generally the brightest north star. For the last decade, the PGAs have pre-crowned the Oscar best picture seven out of 10 times and only on three occasions were the ceremonies split: 2016 (The Big Short vs Spotlight), 2017 (La La Land vs Moonlight) and 2020 (1917 vs Nomadland).
If you were betting on this year’s Oscars, The Brutalist has emerged from the pack as a likely winner of best picture, with its star Adrien Brody as the man most likely in the best actor category. Best actress is a wider field with many of the early season favourites out of contention; Fernanda Torres and Demi Moore are now the two to beat.
The year’s most Oscar-decorated film is Emilia Pérez, with 13 nominations. The Brutalist and Wicked, which have both commanded a large slice of media attention during award season, have 10 nominations apiece. And Conclave and A Complete Unknown are both nominated for eight Oscars.
Plans for this year’s Oscars have been impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires; the voting deadline of January 12 was extended to January 17, and the nomination announcement – scheduled for January 17 – was delayed until today.
A number of related events have also been affected. The AFI Awards lunch has been rescheduled to February 6, the BAFTA “Tea Party” and annual Oscar “nominees luncheon” have been cancelled, and the Critics’ Choice Awards has moved to February 7.
The date of the Academy Awards, March 2, remains unchanged. The ceremony will be hosted by comedian Conan O’Brien. In Australia, Seven and 7plus will air the Oscars live from 10.30am AEDT.
Nominees in key categories:
Best picture: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, Wicked.
Director: Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), James Mangold (A Complete Unknown), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance).
Actor: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice).
Actress: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here).
Supporting actor: Yura Borisov (Anora), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice).
Supporting actress: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), Zoe Saldana (Emilia Pérez).
- A full list of nominees can be found here.
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