Plus, four of this year’s Best Picture nominees were directed by foreign filmmakers (France’s Jacques Audiard and Coralie Fargeat, Canada’s Denis Villeneuve and Brazil’s Walter Salles).
RELATED: All The Best Picture Oscar Winners – Photo Gallery And then there is Cannes.
Cannes has three of this year’s Best Picture nominees in Palme d’Or winner Anora , Emilia Pérez and The Substance.
Maybe an Oscar nomination for the actor playing him finally will get Trump to see the film.
RELATED: Oscars: Every Best Supporting Actor Oscar Winner Back To 1937 Stay tuned.
Due in part to the L, I cautioned in my Oscar predictions article on Wednesday that this year’s list might be even more international than previous years. a. wildfires, which prompted the Academy to extend the voting period by almost a week overall and twice. It suggested that voters in Los Angeles, where many of them reside, might have been distracted. This made me believe that the Oscar nominations may be more influenced than ever by the constantly expanding global base of voters who were unaffected by the fires.
There is no doubt about what took place.
ALSO READ: A Gallery of All Oscar Best Actress Winners.
Additionally, last year’s Best Picture race featured two foreign films: Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. However, France did not submit the latter as its international entry. Additionally, Jacques Audiard and Coralie Fargeat of France, Denis Villeneuve of Canada, and Walter Salles of Brazil were the directors of four of this year’s Best Picture nominees. Spain’s Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), the first trans performer to be nominated for Best Actress, and Brazil’s Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here), the Golden Globe winner, are also non-Americans in the fiercely competitive Best Actress race.
Let’s begin with the top film. Since Z in 1969, eleven films have received simultaneous nominations for Best Picture and Best International Feature (formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film). There are two this year for the first time: Brazil’s intensely political film I’m Still Here, which is the morning’s biggest Best Picture surprise, and France’s Spanish-speaking Emilia Pérez. While all of the earlier examples went on to win the International prize, South Korea’s Parasite is still the only movie to win both Best Picture and International Feature in 2020.
RELATED: Photo Gallery of All Oscar Winners for Best Picture.
Then there’s Cannes. With an astounding 31 nominations for eight films that made their debuts in the South of France, the renowned film festival that was held back in May had an outstanding showing this year. Although playing that far ahead of time can make other films more visible at the fall festivals, it is sometimes regarded as a foolish Oscar strategy. However, since many Cannes films are having their North American premieres at Telluride or Toronto, that is becoming moot. This year’s Best Picture nominees at Cannes include Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Palme d’Or winner Anora.
RELATED: A Gallery of the Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners Over Time.
While we are talking about Emilia Pérez, Netflix received a record 13 nominations for the musical, which is in rarefied air at the Oscars. This is the streamer’s first real chance to win Best Picture, as Apple was the first to do so in 2022 with CODA. Additionally, it is the first time two musicals have competed for Best Picture since the 1968 winner Oliver and Funny Girl and the 1964 winner My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins. Add A Complete Unknown, the musical biopic about Bob Dylan, and you have three.
The only thing about the nominations that really surprises me is how unsurprising they are. Yes, there are the typical snubs, especially in the crowded Best Actress category, and foreign filmmakers are once again taking spots away from those whose films received a lot of nominations for Best Picture and other awards. Among those overlooked is Edward Berger of Conclave, who I believed was a lock for his otherwise eight-time nominated papal drama. What must this outstanding director do to win over the AMPAS Directors branch, which votes on nominations, after being similarly overlooked for his multiple-nominated Best Picture contender All Quiet on the Western Front two years ago? It’s shameful, and since he isn’t a producer or writer this time, he’s locked out.
RELATED: Oscars: All of the Best Director Winners Since 1928.
This also applies to the wildly popular 10-time Best Picture nominee Wicked, whose director Jon M. Chu was overlooked. At least he will be able to see Part 2 of Wicked: For Good next year. I believe it’s time for the Academy to examine this category’s yearly snub fest. Do you believe that five of these ten Best Picture nominees directed themselves? This question is frequently asked.
All in all, the list for today is largely what I anticipated. I mean, did you really think Diane Warren’s nomination for “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight, her 16th (!) Best Song nomination, and her eighth (!) consecutive nomination—another of Netflix’s record 16—would be denied?
With ten nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay, The Brutalist’s stellar performance might set up a strange rerun of 2002, when Adrien Brody’s Oscar-winning Holocaust film The Pianist also took Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay before ultimately losing to Chicago, the final Best Picture musical. Would that rare situation recur for Brady Corbet’s three and a half-hour epic against either Emilia Pérez or Wicked? If the latter were to win Best Picture with no nominations for either Directing or Screenplay, you would have to go back to Grand Hotel from the 1930s, which received Best Picture with just one nomination.
READ ALL OF THIS YEAR’S Oscar-Nominated Screenplays: The Script’s The Thing.
Regarding Emilia Pérez’s 13 nominations today, while headlines are exploding, it is a record for a foreign-language film. Others that have received 13 nominations include Oppenheimer from the previous year, The Shape of Water, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Chicago, Shakespeare in Love, Forrest Gump, Mary Poppins, From Here to Eternity, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Chicago, and Gone with the Wind. All of those films—with the exception of Virginia Woolf, Mary Poppins, and Benjamin Button—went on to win Best Picture. The only movie to ever lose Best Picture with that many nominations is La La Land, which received 14.
With thirteen nominations and a newfound front-runner status, Emilia Pérez had an overwhelming showing. However, with the Academy’s preferential balloting system, which allows voters to rank their favorites from 1 to 10, surprises are still possible, as demonstrated by Moonlight’s victory over La La Land. Conclave, which had the most BAFTA nominations (12), can also find solace in the fact that two recent Best Picture winners, Green Book and CODA, each won Best Picture along with Screenplay and Supporting Actor awards, without receiving a nomination for Directing.
The two most pleasant surprises of the morning were Sebastian Stan’s Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of the younger Donald Trump in The Apprentice and Jeremy Strong’s Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Donald Trump’s evil mentor Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, which set up a showdown in the category with his Succession co-star Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain.
LINKED: All Oscar Winners for Best Actor Since 1927.
This is a memorable moment that undoubtedly Trump himself, who says he hasn’t seen this clever origin story of the 45th and now 47th president, could not have foreseen when he set out to make this film, which is incredibly fair and accurate, even at times sympathetic to Trump. It comes just three days after he was sworn in for a second term. given that Hollywood was opposed to The Apprentice’s release in the United States. S. The Academy actor’s branch should take a bow for their efforts after the Cannes premiere, until Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff finally took a chance and now has two Oscar nominations for their efforts. This is especially important because Stan was vying for the same Golden Globe for his performance in A Different Man, which made it even harder to get the votes required for his Apprentice role.
Not too long ago, Stan told me that Variety couldn’t even find an actor to interview for its Actors on Actors series because of the Trump factor. Perhaps if the actor portraying him receives an Oscar nomination, Trump will finally see the movie. Will he be even more tempted to do it again, as he was last year when he crashed the Oscars with a “review” read by host Jimmy Kimmel at the end of the show?
RELATED: Oscars: All of the Best Supporting Actor Winners Since 1937.
Keep an eye out.
The 97th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 2. At 4 p.m., ABC will broadcast the ceremony live. M. PT/7 ET, and it will be streamed on Hulu.