Let’s talk Oscar noms!
The right calls! The snubs! Ken!
Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and I have thoughts!
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences got everyone on the Left Coast up at 5:30 a.m. for their announcement ceremony – perhaps not realizing that this was the thing that could easily have been announced via press release. Thankfully, I live in Michigan, which meant I followed along with the nominations while I finished my coffee.
I’m not going to post a list of nominees – you can find that at numerous places online, including the Academy’s official website. But I do have some thoughts, and figured that I’d take advantage of a snowy night to send them out (this won’t be the last discussion; Perry and I will have a podcast out shortly where we touch on these and discuss our picks for best of 2023). So, let’s dive in:
Overall, I think it’s a great list of nominees, particularly as Best Picture is concerned. In fact, the best comment I can offer about the best picture nominees is that 8 out of 10 of them were on my top 10 list. Of the two that weren’t, American Fiction was on my runners up list. The only film of the 10 nominees that I didn’t much care for was Maestro, which is well constructed and acted, but just bounced completely off me. Had this list substituted Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in that one’s place, it would be a near-perfect best picture lineup.
Oppenheimer, of course, leads the nominees, and I think it’s generally seen as the front runner. I think Christopher Nolan is the one to beat for director, in a field of nominees where, honestly, anyone would be the right call. But Nolan’s been one of the most beloved – and financially lucrative – directors for a while, and it feels like this biopic is the one that will net him his trophy. And I wouldn’t be mad! Oppenheimer is really good, and I tend to like Nolan a lot. But I wouldn’t be upset if, say, Justine Triet pulled an upset (since she delivered the actual best-directed film of the year).
For the first time, three of the 10 films in the best picture category were directed by women. And they are great films. Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall was my favorite movie of 2023, and Celine Song’s Past Lives was a very close #2. And Barbie was a top-five pick for me. I wish all three women were in contention for best director – but I’m not sure who you leave out. Scorsese – who became the most-nominated director in history – delivered (another) late-period masterpiece with Killers of the Flower Moon, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things is unlike anything else I saw this year. I could argue that The Zone of Interest came in lower on my best-of list than any of the other nominees, but Jonathan Glazer’s film is a tremendous and bold piece of direction (my review for it will be up Thursday at Michigan Sports and Entertainment).
I’ll be honest that Best Picture feels like anyone’s game. I’d probably give the edge to Oppeneheimer just for the Nolan and money factor. But I wouldn’t rule out surprises by Barbie or American Fiction, the latter of which received multiple nominations and is deeply loved. Also, just biding its time quietly is The Holdovers, which doesn’t have the Nolan flash but is extremely well liked and also a multiple nominee (and it’s also very good). I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make a big campaign push in the coming weeks…it’s a movie that wasn’t very widely seen by mainstream audiences, but those who did see Alexander Payne’s latest really fell for it.
In terms of snubs, the largest has to be Margot Robbie not getting a best actress nomination for Barbie, even though Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera both received recognition. It’s not without precedent – our own film guild had nominations for Gosling, Ferrera and Gerwig, but not Robbie – but it still feels wrong. It’s a fantastic performance, funny, smart and emotional. And actress is a very crowded field this year – personally, I think the biggest omission is Greta Lee for Past Lives (and, to be clear, as producer of Barbie, Robbie is still a nominee because of its Best Picture recognition). But for a movie whose theme was about the dangers of the patriarchy and Ken seeking the spotlight from Barbie, it feels weird to give Gosling a nomination and not Robbie. But that’s just the breaks in a crowded field.
It’s not surprising that Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t nominated for Killers of the Flower Moon – the Academy has a history of snubbing DiCaprio from time to time, even in his best performances, and I know that his performance has been a bit divisive. Personally, I think it’s some of the best work of his career – it’s not easy to play dumb, and he has to do that while creating a character who’s both monstrous and somewhat sympathetic. But if you’re going to nominate two performances from that film, the right choices are Lily Gladstone and Robert Deniro.
In other snubs, it’s kind of baffling to me that Todd Field’s May December didn’t receive any acting nominations. I’m not quite as hot on the film as some critics, but it was in my runners up list, and I definitely thought going in that Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman and Charles Melton were potential nominees. But the Academy decided that Nyad was the Netflix film they were going to support for the actress/supporting actress recognition. I haven’t seen Nyad – it’s one of the few that I wasn’t able to get around to – and I guess now I’ll have to rectify that. Same with Netflix’s Rustin, which snagged a best actor nomination for Colman Domingo.
Despite last year closing with some big musicals, none of them managed to snag nominations for best song. I don’t think The Color Purple was eligible, as it was an adaptation of a Broadway play, but both Wonka and Wish went away empty-handed in favor of two songs from Barbie, a Jean Batiste song, a song from Killers of the Flower Moon and..one from Flamin’ Hot. If there’s any proof that the songs in Wonka and Wish were utterly forgettable, it’s that they lost out on Oscar nominations to the Cheetos movie.
Speaking of Wish, Disney’s big 100th-birthday film was utterly shut out of the race, failing to land a nomination for best animated picture (because it’s terrible). Pixar’s Elemental (which is…fine) did merit a nomination, but I’ll be honest: I’d rather have seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem recognized. It doesn’t matter. The big question on Oscar night is whether the Academy honors The Boy and the Heron for Miyazaki’s long legacy or bestows the gold on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for shattering the boundaries of the form.
And, I think that’s where we’ll leave it for now. What do you think of the nominees? What was snubbed? What makes you happy? What will you be rooting for on March 10?