The nominations for the 97th Academy Awards were announced in Los Angeles this lunchtime, after a series of delays due to the terrible forest fires that have been sweeping through the region. It certainly feels like there is a pretty open field in some of this year’s categories, so predictions will be particularly challenging this year!
The Oscars will be announced on March 2nd and will be hosted by Conan O’Brien. As always, I will be putting out my “Should Win / Will Win” predictions nearer to the event and updating the post with the “Did Win” results on the night.
Not that it tends to matter on the night, but the films that (as I tally it) got more that two nominations were:
- “Emilia Pérez” – 13
- “The Brutalist” – 10
- “Wicked Part 1” – 10
- “A Complete Unknown” – 8
- “Conclave” – 8
- “Dune: Part 2” – 6
- “Anora” – 6
- “The Substance” – 5
- “Nosferatu” – 4
- “I’m Still Here” – 3
- “Sing Sing” – 3
- “The Wild Robot” – 3
- “A Real Pain” – 2
- “Flow” – 2
- “Nickel Boys” – 2
- “The Apprentice” – 2
So, here are the nominations in full. As always, hot links lead to my reviews of the films if you are interested. If it doesn’t have a hot link, I haven’t seen/reviewed it yet!
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Best picture
- “Anora” | Neon | dir. Sean Baker
- “Conclave” | Focus Features | dir. Edward Berger
- “The Brutalist” | A24 | dir. Brady Corbet
- “Wicked Part 1” | Universal | dir. Jon M. Chu
- “Emilia Pérez” | Netflix | dir. Jacques Audiard
- “A Complete Unknown” | Searchlight | dir. James Mangold
- “Dune: Part 2” | Warner Bros.| dir. Denis Villeneuve
- “The Substance” | Mubi | dir. Coralie Fargeat
- “Nickel Boys” | Amazon MGM | dir. RaMell Ross
- “I’m Still Here” | Sony Pictures | dir. Walter Salles
A diverse if failrly predictable list. It was only “I’m Still Here” that I didn’t include on my potential long list of 14. Great to see “Nickel Boys” on the list… I predicted this would win “Best Picture” after seeing it… but it’s a vain hope I think unless it has, in the words of Billy Mack, a ‘late surge’.
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Best director
- Brady Corbet “The Brutalist”
- Sean Baker “Anora”
- Jacques Audiard “Emilia Pérez”
- Coralie Fargeat “The Substance”
- James Mangold “A Complete Unknown”
This should really help cut down the odds on which of the 10 Best Films has a chance of winning. A disappointment then is that Edward Berger isn’t nominated for “Conclave”. In what’s been a really strong year for female directors, it feels a shame that Coralie Fargeat is the only female on the list. I have yet to see “The Brutalist” yet (out in the UK tomorrow), but Fargeat might be my tip to win for this one.
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Best actor
- Adrien Brody “The Brutalist”
- Ralph Fiennes “Conclave”
- Colman Domingo “Sing Sing”
- Timothee Chalamet “A Complete Unknown”
- Sebastian Stan “The Apprentice”
Adrien Brody is tipped to be the shoe-in for this award. My personal favourite (subject to the two I haven’t seen yet) would be Ralph Fiennes for his immaculate performance as the stressed cardinal. A disappointment for Daniel Craig who looks like he just missed out on the nomination for “Queer“, which would have been his first.
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Best actress
- Mikey Madison “Anora”
- Demi Moore “The Substance”
- Karla Sofia Gascon “Emilia Pérez”
- Cynthia Erivo “Wicked Part 1”
- Fernanda Torres “I’m Still Here”
In another very strong year for actresses, there was a host of named that could have gone into this one. The first three in the list were widely predicted, but the other two slots went to Erivo (I thought they might have held that one for “Part 2”) and Torres. My money will probably be on either Mikey Madison or Demi Moore for the win. Will need to ponder that.
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Actor in a Supporting Role
- Kieran Culkin “A Real Pain”
- Guy Pearce “The Brutalist”
- Yura Borisov “Anora”
- Edward Norton “A Complete Unknown”
- Jeremy Strong “The Apprentice”
This category was perhaps a little more predictable than the ladies. I was personally disappointed that Denzel Washington didn’t make the cut for “Gladiator II” (I wrote, “I’d be VERY surprised if he doesn’t get an Oscar nod for this.”… so, yes, I am!), but the four others I’ve seen are all worthy additional to this list.
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Actress in a Supporting Role
- Zoe Saldana “Emilia Pérez”
- Ariana Grande “Wicked Part 1”
- Felicity Jones “The Brutalist”
- Isabella Rossellini “Conclave”
- Monica Barbaro “A Complete Unknown”
Another hotly contested list: if I was Margaret Qualley, Selena Gomez or Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, I would be feeling mightily disappointed tonight. Isabella Rossellini “does a Judi Dench” for being nominated for a film in which she has very little screen time, but packs a big punch.
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Best animated feature
- “The Wild Robot” | Universal | dir. Chris Sanders
- “Inside Out 2” | Disney | dir. Kelsey Mann
- “Flow”| Janus | dir. Gints Zilbalodis
- “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” | Netflix | dir. Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham
- “Memoir of a Snail” | IFC | dir. Adam Elliot
No surprises I think “Moana 2” has been given the cold shoulder. Good to see “Memoir of a Snail ” on the list (hilarious!) and great for the UK that Aardman’s stop-motion classic (which I really must see!) got a nomination.
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Best international feature
- “Emilia Pérez” | France | dir. Jacques Audiard
- “The Seed of a Sacred Fig” | Germany | dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
- “I’m Still Here” | Brazil | dir. Walter Salles
- “The Girl With The Needle” | Denmark | dir. Magnus von Horn
- “Flow” | Latvia | dir. Gints Zilbalodis
As always, I have a lot of watching to try to do! But surely Emelia Pérez will be a shoe-in for this award? The odds on this will be INCREDIBLY short!
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Best original screenplay
- “Anora” (Sean Baker)
- “The Brutalist” (Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold)
- “A Real Pain” (Jesse Eisenberg)
- “The Substance” (Coralie Fargeat)
- “September 5” (Tim Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder)
- “Challengers“ (Justin Kuritzkes)
Not sure on this one yet until I’ve seen the missing two films. Good that “Challengers” got some recognition.
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Best adapted screenplay
- “Conclave” (Peter Straughan)
- “Emilia Pérez” (Jacques Audiard)
- “A Complete Unknown” (James Mangold, Jay Cocks)
- “Sing Sing” (Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar)
- “Nickel Boys” (RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes)
I suspect “Conclave” will get this, but it is good to see another nom for “Nickel Boys”.
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Best production design
- “Wicked Part 1”
- “Dune: Part 2”
- “The Brutalist”
- “Nosferatu”
- “Conclave”
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Best costume design
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Best make-up and hairstyling
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Best visual effects
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Best film editing
- “Anora” | Sean Baker
- “Wicked Part 1”| Myron Kerstein
- “The Brutalist” | David Jancso
- “Conclave” | Nick Emerson
- “Emilia Pérez” | Juliette Welfling
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Best cinematography
- “Nosferatu” | Jarin Blaschke
- “The Brutalist” | Lol Crawley
- “Dune: Part 2” | Greig Fraser
- “Emilia Pérez”| Paul Guilhaume
- “Maria” | Edward Lachman
I would love to see this go to “Nosferatu”.
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Best documentary feature
- “No Other Land” | Cinetic Media
- “Sugarcane” | Variance
- “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” | Kino Lorber
- “Black Box Diaries” | MTV
- “Porcelein War” | Picturehouse
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Best sound
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Best original score
- “The Brutalist”
- “Conclave”
- “Wicked Part 1”
- “Emilia Pérez”
- “The Wild Robot”
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Best original song
- “Mi Camino” | “Emilia Pérez”
- “El Mal” | “Emilia Pérez”
- “Like a Bird” | Sing Sing
- “The Journey” | The Six Triple Eight
- “Never Too Late” | Never Too Late
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Best live action short
- “Anuja”
- “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
- “I’m Not a Robot”
- “A Lien”
- “The Last Ranger”
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Best animated short
- “Beautiful Men”
- “In the Shadow of the Cypress”
- “Magic Candies”
- “Wander to Wonder”
- “Yuck!”
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Best documentary short
- “Death by Numbers”
- “I Am Ready, Warden”
- “Incident”
- “Instruments of a Beating Heart”
- “The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
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