'Mank,' 'Nomadland,' 'Chicago 7' lead Oscar nominations
NEW YORK — David Fincher’s “Mank” has led nominations to the 93rd Academy Awards with 10 nods, and for the first time, two women — Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell — were nominated for best director.
Eight films were nominated for best picture. “Mank” was joined by Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” Zhao’s “Nomadland,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Sound of Metal,” “Minari” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
Nominations were announced Monday from London by presenters Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
Watch the nomination announcement
The nominations
Best picture: “The Father”; “Judas and the Black Messiah”; “Mank”; “Minari”; “Nomadland”; “Promising Young Woman”; “Sound of Metal”; “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
Best actress: Carey Mulligan, “Promising Young Woman”; Frances McDormand, “Nomadland”; Viola Davis, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; Vanessa Kirby, “Pieces of a Woman”; Andra Day, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”
Best actor: Chadwick Boseman, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; Riz Ahmed, “Sound of Metal”; Anthony Hopkins, “The Father”; Gary Oldman, “Mank”; Steven Yeun, “Minari.”
Best director: Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland”; Lee Isaac Chung, “Minari”; David Fincher, “Mank”; Emerald Fennell, “Promising Young Woman”; Thomas Vinterberg, “Another Round.”
Best supporting actress: Maria Bakalova, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”; Glenn Close, “Hillbilly Elegy”; Olivia Colman, “The Father”; Amanda Seyfried, “Mank”; Yuh-Jung Youn, “Minari.”
Best supporting actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, “The Trial of the Chicago 7”; Leslie Odom Jr., “One Night in Miami”; Daniel Kaluuya, “Judas and the Black Messiah”; Paul Raci, “Sound of Metal”; LaKeith Stanfield, “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
History was made in the best director category. Only five women have ever been nominated in the category before. Zhao is the first woman of Asian descent nominated. The other nominees were Lee Isaac Chung for “Minari,” David Fincher for “Mank” and Thomas Vinterberg for “Another Round.”
This is only the sixth year in academy history that any women have cracked the best director category.
With their nominations, Zhao and Chung join the ranks of just four directors of East Asian descent to ever be nominated in the category: Hiroshi Teshigahara (1965’s “Woman in the Dunes”), Akira Kurosawa (1985’s “Ran”), Ang Lee (2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain,” 2012’s “Life of Pi”) and Bong Joon Ho (2019’s “Parasite”). Bong and Lee (who won twice out of three nods) are the only two of the nominees to take home the award.
Last month, Zhao won a Golden Globe for her work on “Nomadland,” which also won the prize for best picture, drama, making her the first woman of color, the first woman of Asian descent and just the second female director to do so.
Female directors have been shut out of the Oscar nominations since 2018, when Greta Gerwig was nominated for her debut, “Lady Bird.” Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to take home the prize, for 2009’s “The Hurt Locker,” and no woman has ever been nominated twice in the category.
Only five women have been nominated for the Oscars’ director honor throughout over the awards ceremony’s history: Gerwig, Bigelow, Lina Wertmuller (1976’s “Seven Beauties”), Jane Campion (1993’s “The Piano”) and Sofia Coppola (2003’s “Lost in Translation”).
With her Oscar nomination this morning, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” costume designer Ann Roth ties the record for oldest Academy Award nominee, at 89 years old.
The Tony-winning, Emmy-nominated designer has amassed hundreds of film, theater and TV credits in her nearly seven decade-long career. Now a five-time Oscar nominee, she took home the award in 1997 for her work on “The English Patient” and has also been in contention for her costumes in 2003’s “The Hours,” 2000’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and 1985’s “Places in the Heart.”
Roth ties the record with screenwriter James Ivory and the late Agnès Varda who were both 89 when they were nominated for Academy Awards in 2018. When Ivory took home the adapted screenplay prize for “Call Me by Your Name,” he became the oldest Oscar winner ever. Varda was nominated for the documentary feature “Faces Places” the same year. With her May birthday, only eight days before Ivory, Varda technically remains the oldest nominee.
On the acting side, the late Christopher Plummer remains the oldest ever acting nominee when he was nominated for a supporting role in 2018’s “All the Money in the World,” at 88.
Roth’s additional credits include “Mamma Mia!,” “Working Girl,” “The World According to Garp,” “Dressed to Kill,” “9 to 5” and “Midnight Cowboy.” Up next, her work will appear on Universal’s adaptation of the Broadway smash “Wicked” and in the A24 drama “Humans,” from director Stephen Karam.
Other nominees
Best documentary feature: “Collective”; “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution”; “The Mole Agent”; “My Octopus Teacher”; “Time.”
Best international film: “Quo Vadis, Aida?”, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Denmark, “Another Round”; “Better Days,” Hong Kong; “Collective,” Romania; “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” Tunisia.
Best original song: “Husavik” from “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”; “Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah”; “Io Sì (Seen)” from “The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se)”; “Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami…”; and “Hear My Voice” from “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”
Best animated feature: “Onward”; “Over the Moon”; “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon”; “Soul”; “Wolfwalkers.”
Best original screenplay: “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Shaka King and Will Berson; “Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung; “Promising Young Woman,” Emerald Fennell; “Sound of Metal,” Darius Marder and Abraham Marder; “Trial of the Chicago 7,” Aaron Sorkin.
Best costume design: Alexandra Byrne, “Emma”; Ann Roth, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; Trish Summerville, “Mank”; Bina Daigeler “Mulan”; Massimo Cantini Parrini “Pinocchio.”
The film academy and ABC, which will telecast the Oscars on April 25 (delayed two months because of the pandemic), will hope that the nominees can drum up more excitement than they have elsewhere. Interest in little golden statuettes has nosedived during the pandemic. Ratings for a largely virtual Golden Globes, with acceptance speeches by Zoom, plunged to 6.9 million viewers — a 64% drop from 2020 — last month.
The Academy Awards would typically have happened by now but this year were postponed by two months due to the pandemic. They will instead be telecast April 25. The film academy on Monday confirmed that the show will be held at both its usual home in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and Los Angeles’ railway hub, Union Station.
After a pandemic year that shuttered most movie theaters, the expected best-picture nominees will have hardly any box office to speak of. It will be an Oscars not just without blockbusters but with many movies that have barely played on the big screen. Streaming services are set to dominate Hollywood’s biggest and most sought-after awards.
The film academy and ABC, which will telecast the Oscars on April 25 (delayed two months due to the pandemic), will hope that the nominees can drum up more excitement than they have elsewhere. Interest in little golden statuettes has nosedived during the pandemic. Ratings for a largely virtual Golden Globes, with acceptance speeches by Zoom, plunged to 6.9 million viewers — a 64% drop from 2020 — last month.
With the notable exception of fueling streaming subscriber growth, the pandemic has been punishing for the movie industry. Production slowed to a crawl, blockbusters were postponed or detoured to streaming and thousands have been laid off or furloughed.
But the outlook for Hollywood has recently brightened as coronavirus cases have slid and vaccines have ramped up. Movie theaters are reopening in the U.S.’s two largest markets, New York and Los Angeles. And several larger movies — including the Walt Disney Co.’s “Black Widow” (May 7) — are scheduled for May and beyond.
Film academy president David Rubin said Monday that the April 25 show will play out at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre as well as its transportation hub, Union Station. Expect the broadcast to do its best to pitch viewers on going back to the movies.
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