Alright, we've all waited long enough. Let's get to it.
Here are the nominees for the 90th annual Academy Awards:
BEST PICTURE
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST DIRECTOR
Image courtesy of Focus Features
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
BEST ACTOR
Image courtesy of Focus Features
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
BEST ACTRESS
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Image courtesy of Sony
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Image courtesy of Focus Features
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Image: Universal/IMDb
Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick
Jordan Peele Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Image courtesy of Fox
James Ivory, Call Me By Your Name
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Disaster Artist
Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green, Logan
Aaron Sorkin, Molly's Game
Virgil Williams and Dee Rees, Mudbound
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Image: Pixar/IMDb
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Image courtesy of Netflix
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Image courtesy of Magnolia
A Fantastic Woman
The Insult
Loveless
On Body and Soul
The Square
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Image: Lucasfilm/IMDB
Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk
Jonny Greenwood, Phantom Thread
Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water
John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Carter Burwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Image: Sony Classics/IMDb
"Mighty River" from Mudbound
"Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name
"Remember Me" from Coco
"Stand Up for Something" from Marshall
"This is Me" from The Greatest Showman
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Image courtesy of Netflix
Roger A. Deakins, Blade Runner 2049
Bruno Delbonnel, Darkest Hour
Hoyte van Hoytema, Dunkirk
Rachel Morrison, Mudbound
Dan Laustsen, The Shape of Water
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Jacqueline Durran, Beauty and the Beast
Jacqueline Durran, Darkest Hour
Mark Bridges, Phantom Thread
Luis Sequeira, The Shape of Water
Consolata Boyle, Victoria & Abdul
BEST FILM EDITING
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos, Baby Driver
Lee Smith, Dunkirk
Tatiana S. Riegel, I, Tonya
Sidney Wolinsky, The Shape of Water
Jon Gregory, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Image courtesy of Lionsgate
Darkest Hour
Victoria & Abdul
Wonder
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Image courtesy of Fox
Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
BEST SOUND EDITING
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST SOUND MIXING
Image courtesy of Sony
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmett
The Silent Child
Watu Wote/All of Us
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Edith + Eddie
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop
It was a big day filled with plenty of major revelations for the Oscar race. Here are just a few of my observations from the events of the day.
-Phantom Thread is an unexpected force
Images courtesy of Focus Features
If you had told me yesterday that Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread would ultimately be nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, I probably would have laughed in your face. Sure, I thought the arthouse fashion drama had an outside shot at a few nominations, but its odds for the big categories seemed slim. Conventional wisdom noted that it broke too late in the race to have a major impact, and the guilds didn't go wild for it. And yet, Daniel Day-Lewis's final hurrah managed to become a sneaky Oscar powerhouse, finding its way into the Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actress races and solidifying Paul Thomas Anderson's brand along the way. I saw the film last weekend, and while it's not my favorite of this year's awards season, I'm delighted to see such a weird, uniquely brilliant movie be nominated for the Academy's top prize. Plus, PTA is one of the best filmmakers alive- he deserves all the recognition in the world. Phantom Thread might strike out completely at the Oscars, but a hefty set of nominations is worth commending.
-The Shape of Water leads with 13 nominations
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
This wasn't necessarily a surprise, but Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water led all nominees with a stunning 13 nods. That ties the film with Oscar heavyweights like Gone with the Wind and Shakespeare in Love for the second-most nominations of all time, behind only the trio of Titanic, All About Eve, and La La Land (14 each). This massive haul makes del Toro's Cold War fantasy the de facto front-runner in the race, but it's worth mentioning that Damien Chazelle's aforementioned musical led all nominees last year before losing the top prize. The Shape of Water is in a great position, but nobody on the campaign should get too comfortable yet.
-The Best Director category is stacked, and Christopher Nolan gets his first nod
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Despite the regrettable absence of Call Me By Your Name's Luca Guadagnino and The Florida Project's Sean Baker, I don't think anyone could find much to complain about in this year's Best Director category. It's just stacked from top to bottom, and you could make a convincing case for any of these filmmakers. Even though I'm not a fan of the film, Guillermo del Toro masterfully brought his singular vision to life in a way that spoke to a good number of people, and he's a beloved force in the industry. Paul Thomas Anderson got recognized for his incredible mastery of craft in Phantom Thread, Lady Bird's terrific Greta Gerwig is now the fifth woman to be nominated for Best Director, and Jordan Peele gets a much-deserved nomination for incendiary, genius work on Get Out. But of course, I have to single out one of my favorite filmmakers- Christopher Nolan, who received his first Best Director nomination today. After being snubbed for Inception, Interstellar, and all of the Dark Knight movies, Nolan finally gets his due for what might be his most intricate achievement yet. This is my personal favorite nomination of the day, and I sincerely hope that he takes home the award on March 4.
-Call Me By Your Name and The Post disappoint, snubs for Hanks, Stuhlbarg, and Hammer
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox
We all had a feeling that this was coming, but the Oscar campaigns for Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name and Steven Spielberg's The Post both ended with a pronounced whimper. Yes, both films did receive the all-important Best Picture nomination, but with the level of acclaim and the caliber of the talent involved, the results should have been much better than this. The former film, a gorgeous romance set in 1980s Italy, received 4 nominations, including Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Song. But Michael Stuhlbarg and Armie Hammer were notably absent from the Best Supporting Actor list, which is particularly disappointing when you consider that both actors were thought to be shoo-ins at one point. Meanwhile, Spielberg's Pentagon Papers drama ended up with only 2 nominations- the aforementioned Best Picture nod and Best Actress for Meryl Streep. That's a crushing blow, but this may have just been the wrong year for the kind of movie that seems tailor-made for awards. Then again, Darkest Hour was fairly dominant, so who knows what happened here.
-James Franco misses the cut. Did the allegations hurt him?
Image courtesy of A24
One of the big question marks going into this morning was the matter of James Franco. Since the film's premiere at SXSW, Franco was widely praised for his turn as notorious filmmaker Tommy Wiseau, even winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. But just before voting closed, Franco was accused of sexual misconduct in a bombshell Los Angeles Times piece. Many thought that the news came too late for Franco to be actually impacted (the Times piece ran on January 11; voting ended on January 12), but he still fell short in the end. He was beat out by Denzel Washington, a perennial Academy favorite who appeared in the little-seen Roman J. Israel, Esq., taking down The Post's Tom Hanks and Franco for his eighth acting nomination. Considering the relative weakness of Best Actor this year, Franco's absence is certainly fascinating.
-Mudbound gets 4 nominations, as Netflix tests its Oscar chances
Image courtesy of Netflix
Netflix is still searching for that elusive Best Picture nomination, but the streaming service had an excellent showing today. Dee Rees's Mudbound received four nominations, including Best Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay. While one could argue that the film would have been a guarantee for Best Picture in the hands of another studio, I think this is arguably a great performance for a challenging film. After Netflix's failure to lead Cary Joji Fukunaga's harrowing Beasts of No Nation to a single Oscar nomination, many suspected that the Academy's Netflix bias would shut out Mudbound entirely. Thankfully, the younger, more progressive elements of the new Academy kept this extraordinary American epic in the race. Hopefully we're only a few years away from Netflix movies getting the full respect that they deserve.
-Logan snags a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay
Image courtesy of Fox
I went out on a limb yesterday when I predicted that James Mangold's Logan would end up in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. But in the end, my pipe dream came true. While the superhero western didn't get nearly enough recognition throughout this entire season, I'm content with a nomination for Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green's excellent screenplay. It's the first superhero movie to be nominated in a screenplay category, making this one of the best surprises of the day.
-The Big Sick, I, Tonya, The Florida Project- Best Picture darlings that just weren't meant to be
Image courtesy of Amazon/Lionsgate
And then we come to the movies that just couldn't pull it together. Michael Showalter's The Big Sick was always somewhat of a long shot, as it's the kind of low-key indie comedy that often gets overlooked. But after recognition from the Producers Guild and the SAG Awards, I held out some hope that the wonderful love story could make the cut. Unfortunately, The Big Sick struck out- while it did receive the expected nod for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon's top-notch screenplay, the film didn't stand a chance in the competitive Best Picture category. And when you throw in Holly Hunter's failure to garner a Supporting Actress nod, it appears that voters just forgot this one. Oh well.
I, Tonya honestly didn't have a bad morning, but after all of the Best Picture hubbub over the last several weeks, the lack of a nomination in any major categories feels like a letdown. Margot Robbie and Allison Janney got the expected nods, but when I saw that Tatiana S. Riegel had made the cut in Best Film Editing, I thought the film stood a chance of sliding into the most prestigious category. Unfortunately for NEON, their controversial Tonya Harding biopic couldn't get it done. And finally, no presumed Oscar contender fell apart more rapidly than Sean Baker's The Florida Project, which was once tapped as a major player in several categories. In the end, Baker's tender portrait of children on the outskirts of Disney World took home only one nomination- Best Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe, who seems destined to lose to Sam Rockwell. This is really disheartening, as Florida Project is a moving, effective piece of indie cinema. But I can't say I didn't see this coming.
And that's all for now. We're still over a month away from the Oscars, so the race still has the potential to change rapidly in the coming weeks. Overall, I'm incredibly pleased with these nominations- even with the expected misses, there's little to complain about here.
Look for more Oscar coverage as the season progresses.
Here are the nominees for the 90th annual Academy Awards:
BEST PICTURE
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
BEST ACTOR
Image courtesy of Focus Features
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
BEST ACTRESS
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Image courtesy of Sony
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Image courtesy of Focus Features
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Image: Universal/IMDb
Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick
Jordan Peele Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Image courtesy of Fox
James Ivory, Call Me By Your Name
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Disaster Artist
Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green, Logan
Aaron Sorkin, Molly's Game
Virgil Williams and Dee Rees, Mudbound
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Image: Pixar/IMDb
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Image courtesy of Netflix
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Image courtesy of Magnolia
A Fantastic Woman
The Insult
Loveless
On Body and Soul
The Square
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Image: Lucasfilm/IMDB
Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk
Jonny Greenwood, Phantom Thread
Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water
John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Carter Burwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Image: Sony Classics/IMDb
"Mighty River" from Mudbound
"Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name
"Remember Me" from Coco
"Stand Up for Something" from Marshall
"This is Me" from The Greatest Showman
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Image courtesy of Netflix
Roger A. Deakins, Blade Runner 2049
Bruno Delbonnel, Darkest Hour
Hoyte van Hoytema, Dunkirk
Rachel Morrison, Mudbound
Dan Laustsen, The Shape of Water
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Jacqueline Durran, Beauty and the Beast
Jacqueline Durran, Darkest Hour
Mark Bridges, Phantom Thread
Luis Sequeira, The Shape of Water
Consolata Boyle, Victoria & Abdul
BEST FILM EDITING
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos, Baby Driver
Lee Smith, Dunkirk
Tatiana S. Riegel, I, Tonya
Sidney Wolinsky, The Shape of Water
Jon Gregory, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Image courtesy of Lionsgate
Darkest Hour
Victoria & Abdul
Wonder
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Image courtesy of Fox
Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
BEST SOUND EDITING
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST SOUND MIXING
Image courtesy of Sony
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmett
The Silent Child
Watu Wote/All of Us
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Edith + Eddie
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop
It was a big day filled with plenty of major revelations for the Oscar race. Here are just a few of my observations from the events of the day.
-Phantom Thread is an unexpected force
Images courtesy of Focus Features
If you had told me yesterday that Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread would ultimately be nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, I probably would have laughed in your face. Sure, I thought the arthouse fashion drama had an outside shot at a few nominations, but its odds for the big categories seemed slim. Conventional wisdom noted that it broke too late in the race to have a major impact, and the guilds didn't go wild for it. And yet, Daniel Day-Lewis's final hurrah managed to become a sneaky Oscar powerhouse, finding its way into the Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actress races and solidifying Paul Thomas Anderson's brand along the way. I saw the film last weekend, and while it's not my favorite of this year's awards season, I'm delighted to see such a weird, uniquely brilliant movie be nominated for the Academy's top prize. Plus, PTA is one of the best filmmakers alive- he deserves all the recognition in the world. Phantom Thread might strike out completely at the Oscars, but a hefty set of nominations is worth commending.
-The Shape of Water leads with 13 nominations
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
This wasn't necessarily a surprise, but Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water led all nominees with a stunning 13 nods. That ties the film with Oscar heavyweights like Gone with the Wind and Shakespeare in Love for the second-most nominations of all time, behind only the trio of Titanic, All About Eve, and La La Land (14 each). This massive haul makes del Toro's Cold War fantasy the de facto front-runner in the race, but it's worth mentioning that Damien Chazelle's aforementioned musical led all nominees last year before losing the top prize. The Shape of Water is in a great position, but nobody on the campaign should get too comfortable yet.
-The Best Director category is stacked, and Christopher Nolan gets his first nod
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Despite the regrettable absence of Call Me By Your Name's Luca Guadagnino and The Florida Project's Sean Baker, I don't think anyone could find much to complain about in this year's Best Director category. It's just stacked from top to bottom, and you could make a convincing case for any of these filmmakers. Even though I'm not a fan of the film, Guillermo del Toro masterfully brought his singular vision to life in a way that spoke to a good number of people, and he's a beloved force in the industry. Paul Thomas Anderson got recognized for his incredible mastery of craft in Phantom Thread, Lady Bird's terrific Greta Gerwig is now the fifth woman to be nominated for Best Director, and Jordan Peele gets a much-deserved nomination for incendiary, genius work on Get Out. But of course, I have to single out one of my favorite filmmakers- Christopher Nolan, who received his first Best Director nomination today. After being snubbed for Inception, Interstellar, and all of the Dark Knight movies, Nolan finally gets his due for what might be his most intricate achievement yet. This is my personal favorite nomination of the day, and I sincerely hope that he takes home the award on March 4.
-Call Me By Your Name and The Post disappoint, snubs for Hanks, Stuhlbarg, and Hammer
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox
We all had a feeling that this was coming, but the Oscar campaigns for Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name and Steven Spielberg's The Post both ended with a pronounced whimper. Yes, both films did receive the all-important Best Picture nomination, but with the level of acclaim and the caliber of the talent involved, the results should have been much better than this. The former film, a gorgeous romance set in 1980s Italy, received 4 nominations, including Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Song. But Michael Stuhlbarg and Armie Hammer were notably absent from the Best Supporting Actor list, which is particularly disappointing when you consider that both actors were thought to be shoo-ins at one point. Meanwhile, Spielberg's Pentagon Papers drama ended up with only 2 nominations- the aforementioned Best Picture nod and Best Actress for Meryl Streep. That's a crushing blow, but this may have just been the wrong year for the kind of movie that seems tailor-made for awards. Then again, Darkest Hour was fairly dominant, so who knows what happened here.
-James Franco misses the cut. Did the allegations hurt him?
Image courtesy of A24
One of the big question marks going into this morning was the matter of James Franco. Since the film's premiere at SXSW, Franco was widely praised for his turn as notorious filmmaker Tommy Wiseau, even winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. But just before voting closed, Franco was accused of sexual misconduct in a bombshell Los Angeles Times piece. Many thought that the news came too late for Franco to be actually impacted (the Times piece ran on January 11; voting ended on January 12), but he still fell short in the end. He was beat out by Denzel Washington, a perennial Academy favorite who appeared in the little-seen Roman J. Israel, Esq., taking down The Post's Tom Hanks and Franco for his eighth acting nomination. Considering the relative weakness of Best Actor this year, Franco's absence is certainly fascinating.
-Mudbound gets 4 nominations, as Netflix tests its Oscar chances
Image courtesy of Netflix
Netflix is still searching for that elusive Best Picture nomination, but the streaming service had an excellent showing today. Dee Rees's Mudbound received four nominations, including Best Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay. While one could argue that the film would have been a guarantee for Best Picture in the hands of another studio, I think this is arguably a great performance for a challenging film. After Netflix's failure to lead Cary Joji Fukunaga's harrowing Beasts of No Nation to a single Oscar nomination, many suspected that the Academy's Netflix bias would shut out Mudbound entirely. Thankfully, the younger, more progressive elements of the new Academy kept this extraordinary American epic in the race. Hopefully we're only a few years away from Netflix movies getting the full respect that they deserve.
-Logan snags a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay
Image courtesy of Fox
I went out on a limb yesterday when I predicted that James Mangold's Logan would end up in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. But in the end, my pipe dream came true. While the superhero western didn't get nearly enough recognition throughout this entire season, I'm content with a nomination for Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green's excellent screenplay. It's the first superhero movie to be nominated in a screenplay category, making this one of the best surprises of the day.
-The Big Sick, I, Tonya, The Florida Project- Best Picture darlings that just weren't meant to be
And then we come to the movies that just couldn't pull it together. Michael Showalter's The Big Sick was always somewhat of a long shot, as it's the kind of low-key indie comedy that often gets overlooked. But after recognition from the Producers Guild and the SAG Awards, I held out some hope that the wonderful love story could make the cut. Unfortunately, The Big Sick struck out- while it did receive the expected nod for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon's top-notch screenplay, the film didn't stand a chance in the competitive Best Picture category. And when you throw in Holly Hunter's failure to garner a Supporting Actress nod, it appears that voters just forgot this one. Oh well.
I, Tonya honestly didn't have a bad morning, but after all of the Best Picture hubbub over the last several weeks, the lack of a nomination in any major categories feels like a letdown. Margot Robbie and Allison Janney got the expected nods, but when I saw that Tatiana S. Riegel had made the cut in Best Film Editing, I thought the film stood a chance of sliding into the most prestigious category. Unfortunately for NEON, their controversial Tonya Harding biopic couldn't get it done. And finally, no presumed Oscar contender fell apart more rapidly than Sean Baker's The Florida Project, which was once tapped as a major player in several categories. In the end, Baker's tender portrait of children on the outskirts of Disney World took home only one nomination- Best Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe, who seems destined to lose to Sam Rockwell. This is really disheartening, as Florida Project is a moving, effective piece of indie cinema. But I can't say I didn't see this coming.
And that's all for now. We're still over a month away from the Oscars, so the race still has the potential to change rapidly in the coming weeks. Overall, I'm incredibly pleased with these nominations- even with the expected misses, there's little to complain about here.
Look for more Oscar coverage as the season progresses.
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