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And so the race for the 96th Academy Awards begins.

The nominees for Best Picture are…

American Fiction (5 nominations)
Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall) (5 nominations)
Barbie (8 nominations)
The Holdovers (5 nominations)
Killers of the Flower Moon (10 nominations)
Maestro (7 nominations)
Oppenheimer (13 nominations)
Past Lives (2 nominations)
Poor Things (11 nominations)
The Zone of Interest (5 nominations)

You can see a full ballot list here.

My first thoughts on this list? Although it was fairly predictable, I must say I’m rather pleased to have a Best Picture roster where all the films represent strong personal visions, even if there were a few that didn’t really work for me (Oppenheimer and Maestro, I’m looking at you). This is a significant improvement over last year’s list, which I was rather meh on.

And at least three films have extensive non-English dialogue! That is, I know Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Past Lives do, but I haven’t yet seen The Zone of Interest so there might be four. In any case, that has to be some kind of record. Of those, I’m most thrilled and surprised to see Past Lives, mostly because it was my favorite film of 2023 but the most in doubt in terms of nominations. This is the third year of having a mandated full slate of ten Best Picture nominees so I knew it had a good chance, but one can never be sure what will grab the final one or two slots.

And that leads me to…

Three films directed by women! You love to see it. Well, I do anyway. And with fifteen nominations among them! Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, and Past Lives are solidly in my Top Ten for the year and at this point I’ve seen most of the critical darlings so I don’t think they will be dethroned as I catch up on the two nominees I haven’t seen: American Fiction (for which I have an Indie Spirit Award screener) and The Zone of Interest (which I had planned on seeing in the theater later today).

Finally, I’m happy to see The Holdovers get so much love. I think it’s a lot more layered than people have given it credit for and represents a certain kind of old-school solid filmmaking that we don’t see too much of anymore. I’d put Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. in that category as well and I must admit I’m a bit disappointed to see that film completely shut out of the running (along with All of Us Strangers, which I thought might at least pick up a few nods for Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor if not Best Picture).

And with that, let’s dig deeper into what really happened with the rest of the nominations, shall we?

Sandra Hüller discusses her case with her lawyer in Anatomy of a Fall.

The Good

I was very happy to see both Sandra Hüller and Lily Gladstone get acting nods (for Anatomy of a Fall and Killers of the Flower Moon respectively); they were each great in multiple films this year. [Side note: I highly recommend checking out Gladstone in The Unknown Country.]

Also, I haven’t seen Nyad, but good for Annette Bening on sneaking into Best Actress alongside them ahead of Margot Robbie for Barbie. I mean, I would have been happy to see Robbie get nominated for her performance, but Ryan Gosling really does steal the show in that film so I understand why she didn’t. And, as a producer, she already has a nomination, for Best Picture.

I’m also thrilled that “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon was nominated for Original Song. The Fighting in the War Room podcast now uses it for transition music so it has wormed its way into my brain almost as much as the two songs from Barbie in this category, both of which are worthy contenders.

Speaking of fun, I was also glad to see Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik recognized for their Original Screenplay for May December. Remarkably, Original Screenplay is the only nomination for this film, which currently sits at #3 in my 2023 Top Ten, just ahead of Poor Things. But also not remarkable because May December was an excellent script that had a difficult job in making a dicey subject more enjoyable than it should have been. What truly is remarkable is the fact that this is Samy Burch’s first feature film script! [Side note: Apparently she also worked on the screenplay for the recently shelved Coyote vs. Acme.]

The Bad

Although the list for Best Directing was good and I really can’t argue with the choices made (see above re strong personal visions), it was still disappointing not to see Greta Gerwig on it. However, this is always an extremely competitive category and this year it was unclear exactly who would get in. In fact, given the strong showing of The Holdovers, I’m sort of relieved that Justine Triet managed to get a slot ahead of Alexander Payne. Not that it wouldn’t have been fantastic to see two female directors in there, but Lanthimos, Nolan, and Scorsese were pretty much shoe-ins and everything I’ve heard about The Zone of Interest made me suspect Glazer would probably be on there too so that didn’t leave much room. As much as I loved Barbie and don’t think it is getting nearly enough “cinematic” credit in the general discourse, I do think the Directing Branch probably made the right call here.

A couple of absences in the Supporting categories that stung a bit are Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) and Charles Melton (May December), mostly because Mark Ruffalo’s performance in Poor Things was one of the few things I didn’t like about that film. And how did America Ferrera (Barbie) get in there? I mean, I like her in the role just fine, but I’m rather surprised to see her singled out. This is one of those years where I think we would have been better served by one genderless category with ten nominees.

Finally, there was quite a surprise in the Adapted Screenplay category, where The Zone of Interest nabbed a slot over what I thought would be a front-runner, Killers of the Flower Moon. [Side note: I guess the Academy really went for The Zone of Interest didn’t they? Which makes the Directing choices even more understandable.] I must admit I was kind of hoping to see All of Us Strangers or Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. here as well but this was definitely a tough category this year. Given the options, I hope Barbie takes this one. As clunky as the America Ferrara speech was, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the dialogue in Oppenheimer. And, if you are going to insist on it being an adaptation, as the Academy apparently does, it certainly does a lot more with the “source” material than Oppenheimer did. [Side note: That’s right, I said it.]

Frankenstein’s monster meets the doll Coppélia in Poor Things.

The Ugly

I’m not really seeing anything egregious this year, but I definitely don’t like what seems to be a trend of nominations in acting and technical categories clustering around the Best Picture nominations. While it obviously makes sense if they are indeed the “best” pictures, it always makes me wonder how many films voters actually saw. This year, the only non-Best Picture nominee to score more than two nominations was Napoleon, in Costume, Production Design, and Visual Effects. And only four other films earned two nominations each: The Creator (Sound and Visual Effects), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Sound and Visual Effects), Nyad (Lead Actress and Supporting Actress), and The Society of the Snow (Makeup and International Feature).

No additional Costume nod for The Color Purple (Supporting Actress) or recognition of the acting in May December (Original Screenplay)? Or, in terms of films that were shut out completely, no Production Design or Screenplay nominations for Asteroid City? No Editing or Sound nominations for The Killer? No Costume or Production Design for Wonka? No Best Actor nods for Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers or Glenn Howerton in BlackBerry? Why didn’t Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. get the love that The Holdovers did? [Side note: Actually, I know the answer to that one. It’s the patriarchy, Margaret.]

I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this when I post my Wish List just before Oscar night but, in short, I prefer when the love is spread around a bit more.

Mother and daughter go bra shopping in Are You there God? It’s Me Margaret.

The Oscar Blitz

So, what will I be running out to see?

Well, as noted above, I’ve seen most of the Best Picture nominees and I’ll probably see both American Fictions and The Zone of Interest this week, if not today. And then probably Nyad and The Society of the Snow, both of which are streaming on Netflix. After that, I suppose it will be Rustin since that film is also already on Netflix and will close out the acting categories for me. After that, I’ll have seen all nominees in what I consider to be the ten major categories (Best Picture, Directing, Adapted and Original Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography, and the four Acting categories) except for El Conde, where Edward Lachman is up for Cinematography. I’m not particularly interested in the film per se, but I’ve liked some of Larraín’s other work and Lachman has an impressive filmography so I might take it on since, once again, it is currently on Netflix. [Side note: Damn, Netflix.]

On the flip side, I will probably not be seeing Napoleon. If I didn’t go to see it when it was playing in Los Angeles over Thanksgiving at the recently restored Vista, which I really did want to check out, I’m not going to sit through it at home on the small screen. Also, I have no desire to see The Creator, a film I had to look up when I saw the name because it was completely off my radar.

Instead, I will likely rewatch the other Best Picture nominees, all of which I have access to via various streaming services and/or Indie Spirit Award screeners. Yes, maybe even Maestro and Oppenheimer. Maybe.

I guess we’ll see what I get to before the awards telecast on Sunday, March 10, but, until then, I’m most rooting for Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, Past Lives, and Poor Things to grab what they can.

What are your thoughts on the nominations? Feel free to add them in the comments and stay tuned over the next few weeks for potential posts in an Oscar Blitz series with more details on major categories.