It’s a cliché to point out how the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed Hollywood (I’ve written about it at least twice). However, this year’s rollercoaster ride of an awards season has crystallized that the traditional Oscars rulebook, one filled with heady rules about campaigning and precursors and other do’s and don’ts, is fraying some.
The 2022 Oscar nominations didn’t yield any particularly industry-breaking shockers (imagine if Annette or The Green Knight made it into Best Picture). As expected, Jane Campion’s cerebral Western The Power of the Dog and Denis Villeneuve’s vast sci-fi epic Dune received the most nominations, with 12 and 10, respectively. The Academy also fell back on its tendency to choose old favorites over more challenging nominees. (Belfast’s Judi Dench getting in over Catriona Balfe for Best Supporting Actress bares slight echoes of Kathy Bates pipping Jennifer Lopez a few years ago.) However, even amongst typical Academy behavior are signals of significant and interesting change that the pandemic only hastened.
How Much Do High-Profile Precursors Mean?
For those who care intensely about Oscars predictions (Film Twitter, yours truly until this season), the combating flurry of awards that preceded them were paramount. The Golden Globes’ main value prop, besides getting glamorous celebrities reasonably un-sober during primetime, was getting Oscar contenders critical exposure to support their campaigns. Aside from the Globes, there’s the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Critics Choice Awards, the BAFTAs, the WGAs and the PGAs all operating as Oscar bellwethers. A nomination and a win at these could reshape prediction lists. A notable snub could destroy a campaign.
That thinking is what had many fearing for the chances of Kristen Stewart’s acclaimed performance as Princess Diana in Spencer. While she swept through the fall critics and landed Globes and Critics Choice nominations, her snub at SAG sent shockwaves throughout the industry. It suggested that the actors branch – the Academy’s largest – might not be receptive to her. The BAFTAs snub last week had some doubting she’d even land an Oscar nomination. Perhaps her Twilight past was too big of a hurdle to overcome? However, Stewart prevailed.
Someone who didn’t was House of Gucci’s Lady Gaga, the only Best Actress contender to hit every major precursor this season (Globe, SAG, Critics Choice and BAFTA). Instead, Academy voters found room for Penelope Cruz’s Volpi Cup-winning performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers. Aside from the Gaga shocker, the influence of precursors didn’t shake out for other contenders, like Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizza or Balfe in Belfast, both who seemed like foregone conclusions not even a week ago.
I’m not saying that the precursors don’t matter anymore; they absolutely do. They can raise a campaign’s profile, or encourage a voter to give a film or performance a second look. However, it’s beginning to feel like their predictive power has lessened, that a miss doesn’t mean campaign ruin, or barnstorming through them doesn’t guarantee a slot. Ultimately, I think this is a good thing. Without the pressure of Oscars relevance, it allows these awards to think outside the box and offer up picks that might not be palatable to Academy voters.
International Passion Projects Break Through
Parasite’s unexpected, delightful sweep through the Oscars in 2020 could’ve been seen either as a movement or a moment. Either the Academy’s growing international branch was reshaping what an Oscar-worthy film looked like, or that Bong Joon-ho’s incisive dramatic satire was an undeniable blip that the Academy would correct the following year.
It seems like the former is proving itself out. Amidst big players like The Power of the Dog and Dune in Best Picture was Drive My Car, the Japanese film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi about grief and art. Critics passionately supported the film, receiving top honors from the influential New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The relatively small size of its distributor Janus Films was not the hindrance it might’ve been in previous years. Alongside Best Picture and Best International Feature, Drive My Car also landed nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, scoring four overall.
It was a great year for international films in general. The Norwegian film The Worst Person in the World may not have broken into the Best Actress category at the last-minute as some were expecting, but it did land a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Parallel Mothers did land a Best Actress nomination, as well as Best Original Score. Flee, the Danish animated documentary, made Oscars history by becoming the first film nominated across animation, documentary, and international disciplines. There is still progress to make (like Parasite, Drive My Car did not garner any acting nominations), but this year reinforces the growing influence of international voters.
Best Actress is the Hottest of Messes
If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now: the Best Actress Oscar race is chaos. 24 hours ago, Lady Gaga seemed like the likely frontrunner after scoring at the BAFTAs, only for her to miss an Oscar nomination altogether. Kidman’s Globe win for Being the Ricardos vaulted her to the top of many lists, but a BAFTA miss took the wind from her sails, as it did for Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter. Despite my above point that precursors are increasingly less important, Stewart still feels like a long shot to take home the statuette, given that key constituencies with significant Academy crossover (actors and the Brits) weren’t feeling her take on Princess Diana.
That leaves Penelope Cruz and Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Cruz’s performance has a lot of passion behind it, which catapulted her to a nomination, but her awards season presence has felt pretty low-key compared to her fellow nominees. In contrast, Chastain has been pretty present throughout the season, her well-received turn in the HBO miniseries Scenes from a Marriage bolstering her profile. Despite that, she has felt like an on-the-bubble nominee up until now.
In other words, the Best Actress race has no clear frontrunner. Every nominee has their strengths and solid awards narratives, as well as weaknesses. (Something of note: no nominee is starring in a Best Picture contender.) Both frustrating and definitely exciting, any one of this year’s nominees could claim the statuette.
Apparently, Dune Directed Itself?
Every Oscar season has its snubs, and this year is no different. Gaga is one, Ruth Negga in Passing is another, even Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizza feels like a notable miss. However, there is no absence that screams louder than Dune’s Denis Villeneuve in the Best Director category.
Conventional wisdom dictated that Dune would either fail critically, commercially, or both. However, the ambition paid off. The film was a stunning artistic achievement that rewrote the possibilities of the sci-fi genre. Despite its simultaneous streaming release, Dune grossed over $400 million worldwide when it seemed like Marvel was the only game in town. None of what Dune achieved would have happened without Villenueve’s sprawling, convention-busting ambition.
And yet, the Academy snubbed him. Dune is the year’s second-most nominated film, landing everywhere from Best Adapted Screenplay to Makeup & Hairstyling (Timothée Chalamet’s curly locks do go through a journey), and of course Best Picture. But Villeneuve is nowhere to be found in Best Director, losing out to Jane Campion, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. While he is nominated as a producer and screenwriter, Villeneuve’s absence as a director is galling, given his accomplishments.
Here are the full list of nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick … Boom!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Best Supporting Actor
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Best Original Screenplay
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World
Best Adapted Screenplay
CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog
Best Costume Design
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
Best Original Score
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Encanto
Parallel Mothers
The Power of the Dog
Best Animated Short
Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper
Best Live-Action Short
Ala Kachuu — Take and Run
The Dress
The Long Goodbye
On My Mind
Please Hold
Best Documentary Feature
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Writing With Fire
Best Documentary Short
Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball
Three Songs for Benazir
When We Were Bullies
Best International Feature
Drive My Car, Japan
Flee, Denmark
The Hand of God, Italy
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bhutan
The Worst Person in the World, Norway
Achievement in Sound
Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Best Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Best Film Editing
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Tick, Tick … Boom!
Best Cinematography
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
Best Visual Effects
Dune
Free Guy
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
Best Animated Feature
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
Best Original Song
“Be Alive,” King Richard
“Dos Oruguitas,” Encanto
“Down to Joy,” Belfast
“No Time to Die,” No Time to Die
“Somehow You Do,” Four Good Days
