The 2024 Oscar Nominations: Bizarro Business As Usual
Calm down. Have some tea. All can be explained.
I find at this stage of my life and career that it’s impossible to get het up over the supposed injustices of Academy Awards nominations. I’ll leave that to Twitter. The Oscars have always been less about merit than perceived merit, that perception resting on which way the zeitgeist winds are blowing at the precise moment Academy voters make their picks (for both nominations and the subsequent awards). They’re not exactly a popularity contest, although popularity is a factor, and they’re not about which studio mounted the most expensive or effective campaign (ditto). And they certainly don’t reflect the social media hoi polloi or what the critics’ groups think, even if both can have their influence. The Oscars are an in-house company poll, and the company is Hollywood.
Or it used to be: Concerted efforts in recent years to expand and diversify Academy membership have brought in a younger and more international constituency that have without question affected what gets nominated and what wins. Basically they’re letting the junior employees and branch offices vote now, and I doubt you’d see such recent Best Picture winners as “Moonlight,” “Parasite,” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” without them.
But there are Oscar years that represent younger voters and Oscar years that see a resurgence of the old guard, and with thirteen nominations going to Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” an old-school epic from a much-admired modern film craftsman, 2024 is looking like one for the traditionalists. It certainly would seem to be a slap in the face of women: You don’t even have to like “Barbie” to acknowledge that that a nomination for supporting actor Ryan Gosling but not director Greta Gerwig or star Margot Robbie kind of proves the movie’s point. But, look, screenwriter Gerwig and producer Robbie did get nominations and America Ferrera got a supporting nod, so it’s not like the movie was skunked. More telling is that Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations went to Annette Bening and Jodie Foster for “Nyad,” a perfectly decent movie starring two of Hollywood’s most established and admired figures. You don’t hand out roses to the new hires when the senior executives have yet to retire.
Equally shocking until you actually think about it is a single nomination, in the Original Screenplay category, for “May December.” No matter how good Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are, it’s hard to imagine a movie about a shallow, predatory Hollywood actor being viewed with much favor by … Hollywood actors. (Remember, each branch picks nominees in its own category; everyone votes for everyone in the final.)
So take a chill pill, maybe: This is the first year three women directors (Gerwig, Celine Song, and Justine Triet) have cracked the Best Picture category. Lily Gladstone’s well-deserved Best Actress nomination is a first for a Native American woman. Colman Domingo’s Best Actor nomination for “Rustin” is the second time a gay character has been played by a gay performer. (Ian McKellen in “Gods and Monsters” was the first.) Representation is there should you care to look for it.
What else? “Poor Things” has 11 nominations, which for such a gonzo movie is a very strong showing. “Killers of the Flower Moon” has 10, which isn’t: Missing are Leonardo Di Caprio’s lead performance and, more surprisingly, the adapted screenplay by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese. (Thelma Schoonmaker is now the most-nominated film editor ever, though, and Scorsese has passed Steven Spielberg as the most-nominated living director.) “Maestro” has seven nominations, but director Bradley Cooper wasn’t among them. (Supporting Actress Carey Mulligan thankfully was.) Five nominations each went to “American Fiction,” “Anatomy Of A Fall,” The Holdovers,” and “The Zone Of Interest,” as broad a range of movies as can be imagined; the acting nods for Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown in “Fiction,” Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy,” and Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “Holdovers” are especially cheering.
Lessons learned? Warner Brothers may have waited too long to release “The Color Purple,” which deserves more than its one nominee, Danielle Brooks in the Supporting Actress category. France declined to submit “Anatomy Of a Fall” as the country’s representative for the International Oscar due to Hüller’s criticisms of French President Macron; the film it did choose, “The Taste Of Things,” went un-nominated. As always, however, the greater lesson of the annual Oscar marathon remains unheeded: Enjoy the movies, celebrate the talent, and don’t take it seriously.
Here are the nominees for the 2024 Academy Awards, which will be held on March 10.
BEST PICTURE
“American Fiction”
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“Barbie”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Past Lives”
“Poor Things”
“The Zone of Interest”
BEST DIRECTOR
Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”
Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening, “Nyad”
Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”
Emma Stone, “Poor Things”
BEST ACTOR
Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”
Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”
America Ferrera, “Barbie”
Jodie Foster, “Nyad”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”
Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”
Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, “Anatomy of a Fall”
David Hemingson, “The Holdovers”
Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer, “Maestro”
Samy Burch, “May December”
Celine Song, “Past Lives”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Cord Jefferson, “American Fiction”
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, “Barbie”
Tony McNamara, “Poor Things”
Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
“Io Capitano”, Italy
“Perfect Days”, Japan
“Society of the Snow”, Spain
“The Teacher’s Lounge”, Germany
“The Zone of Interest”, United Kingdom
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“The Boy and the Heron”
“Elemental”
“Nimona”
“Robot Dreams”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
“The Eternal Memory”
“Four Daughters”
“To Kill a Tiger”
“20 Days in Mariupol”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“El Conde”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
BEST EDITING
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
“Golda”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
“Society of the Snow”
BEST SOUND
“The Creator”
“Maestro”
“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Oppenheimer”
“The Zone of Interest”
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
“The Creator”
“Godzilla Minus One”
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Napoleon”
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“What Was I Made For?”, Billie Eilish and Finneas, “Barbie”
“I’m Just Ken,” Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, “Barbie”
“The Fire Inside,” Diane Warren, “Flamin’ Hot”
“It Never Went Away,” Jon Batiste, “American Symphony”
“Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People,” Osage Tribal Singers, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
“American Fiction”
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
“The After”
“Invincible”
“Knight of Fortune”
“Red, White and Blue”
“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
“Letter to a Pig”
“Ninety-Five Senses”
“Our Uniform”
“Pachyderme”
“War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko”
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
“The ABCs of Book Banning”
“The Barber of Little Rock”
“Island in Between”
“The Last Repair Shop”
“Nai Nai & Wai Po”