TheOscar nominationsare here at last, and they bring with them more questions than answers for an awards season that has been particularly unpredictable. To recap briefly,A Star Is Bornwas the year’s first major frontrunner, scoring rave reviews and big box office when it hit theaters last fall. ThenAlfonso Cuarón’s masterful Spanish-language black-and-white Netflix dramaRomasomewhat dominated the critics awards, scoring Best Picture trophy after Best Picture trophy. Then as the various guilds started to weigh in, TIFF People’s Choice winnerGreen Booksurged ahead, winning not only at the Golden Globes but also the top trophy from the Producers Guild Awards.
And now here we are on Oscar nominations day andRomaleads the total nominations pack with 10, tied with the biting period dark comedyThe Favourite.A Star Is Bornlanded seven nominations, but shockingly missed out on a Best Director nod forBradley Cooper.Green Bookhas five, scoring key notices (like Film Editing) and missing others (like Best Director). Oh, andBlack Pantheris a genuine Oscar contender with seven nominations in total, including Best Picture.
For those who haven’t been paying as close attention to the race as I have it may be tough to suss out what these Oscar nominations mean, and which films and performers were “snubbed” and which inclusions are surprises. So I wanted to take a moment to break down which Oscar nominations are truly surprising, and which exclusions qualify as “snubs”. Let’s dig in.
Bradley Cooper Left Out of Best Director Race
So yeah, far and away the biggest snubandsurprise this year is Bradley Cooper not landing a Best Director nomination forA Star Is Born. Not only was he a mainstay in the Best Director field all throughout awards season, but his work on the film is unmistakably remarkable. This was a major oversight on the part of the director’s branch that we won’t soon be forgetting.
And yet it also feelsincrediblyfamiliar. It wasn’t that long ago thatBen Affleckdirected the populist awards contenderArgoto great acclaim and success, only for Affleck to be left out of the Best Director field at the Oscars. Affleck went on to win the DGA trophy andArgofamously won Best Picture, due in no small part to pushback from the Academy at large at the perceived oversight. Could this happen again? We’ll see. But I do find it rather ironic.
As for whodidget in over Cooper, the nomination forCold WarfilmmakerPawel Pawlikowskiisn’t entirely unexpected. The critically acclaimed Polish film was surging just as Oscar voting was underway, and many had Pawlikowski on their shortlists—albeit knocking outAdam McKayorPeter Farrelly, not Cooper. Farrelly—who got a DGA nomination alongside Cooper—was also left out of the Best Director nominations, but that was a bit more expected.Green Bookhas been fielding controversy after controversy and the directing in that film isn’t as striking as something like, say,Cold WarorThe Favourite, both of which made the cut.
It also does not go unnoticed that a year afterGreta Gerwiglanded a Best Director nomination, we’re back to all male nominees. Especially in a year with tremendously well-directed films likeLeave No Trace(Debra Granik),You Were Never Really Here(Lynne Ramsay),Can You Ever Forgive Me?(Marielle Heller), andPrivate Life(Tamara Jenkins). Alas.
‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ Left Out of Best Documentary Feature
The other huge oversight this year wasWon’t You Be My Neighbor?, the critical and commercial smash hit documentary that somehow failed to land a Best Documentary Feature nomination. And yet this happens time and time again in the Documentary category, as the Doc voting branch consistently leaves off the most acclaimed or popular film. It wasn’t so long ago that the universally acclaimedJanefailed to land a Best Documentary Feature nomination. So yeah, this one hurts but it’s not exactly a surprise.
Cinematography Goes for ‘Never Look Away’
For me, this was the second biggest surprise following Cooper’s snub. The Best Cinematography field appeared to be sewn up, withFirst Manexpected to land a nomination here for DPLinus Sangren, who won this category for his previous collaboration with directorDamien ChazelleonLa La Land. But not only didFirst Mannot score a nomination, butCaleb Deschanel’s work on the German filmNever Look Awaygot in.No onewas expecting this. If any film was expected to get in as an alternate it wasIf Beale Street Could Talk(which was, sadly, almost roundly rejected by the Academy this year).
Deschanel is an industry veteran and is very well-liked, but the truth of the matter is most folks just had not seen or heard much aboutNever Look Away. As it turns out, enough folks in the Cinematographers branch had, and the film pulled off a very surprising nomination.
‘Roma’ Gets Acting Support
Romawas expected to be a major player this year in Best Picture, Director, and a number of other categories, but folks were a bit unsure as to the film’s chances in the acting categories. After all, this is a Spanish-language film led by a non-professional actress. But the nominations tell us that the Acting branch took to the film well enough to recognize the stellar work by lead actressYalitza Aparicioand supporting actressMarina de Tavira. To me, this signals widespread support throughout the Academy for Netflix’s most critically acclaimed original film, and is a major reason to keep an eye onRomafor the big win.
‘First Man’ Is Largely Ignored
Last but not least, we haveFirst Man. Back in September, the tale of the two biggest awards season contenders was centered aroundA Star Is BornandDamien Chazelle’s ambitious Neil Armstrong biopic. But the film failed to make much of a mark at the box office and reviews were solid yet lacking in the kind of passion that fueledA Star Is Bornto early frontrunner status. And while it ended up scoring four Oscar nominations in total, it failed to crack three of the major categories in which prognosticators felt it had a strong chance of getting in: Cinematography, Score, and Film Editing. The lack of a Best Original Score nomination is particularly striking given thatJustin Hurwitz’s work on the film is roundly recognized as some of the best film music of the year, and he won two Oscars for his work onLa La Land.
But yeah, it’s just very clear that for whatever reasonFirst Manfailed to connected with industry voters this year in the way that most expected, which was particularly intriguing given how stratospheric Chazelle’s rise to winning Best Director just a couple of years ago seemed. And it’s not likeFirst Manis an overblown failure by any account.
Somewhat similarly,MoonlightdirectorBarry Jenkins’If Beale Street Could Talkwas also left out of the major categories aside from Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. This was a bit more expected as the various guilds had been regularly ignoring theJames Baldwinadaptation, but it’s no less striking. Especially since Jenkins and Chazelle were going head to head just a few years ago during the greatLa La Landvs.Moonlightbattles.
Final Thoughts
So what do these nominations mean going forward? Do we have a new frontrunner? IsGreen Bookstill the favorite to win? Honestly, it’s hard to say. The Academy at large will now be voting on all the various nominees that the individual branches amassed, which can sometimes result in some intriguing choices that aren’t always obvious at first glance. It’s also important to remember how significantly the makeup of the Academy has changed over the last few years. It’s far younger and more diverse than ever before. Conventional wisdom doesn’t necessarily hold true anymore, and while precedent offers a guidebook, it can sometimes point to the wrong winner (see:La La Land, the heavy favorite to win, being bested byMoonlight).
The lack of a Best Film Editing nomination for bothRomaandA Star Is Borndoesn’t bode well for those films’ chances at winning Best Picture. Only once in the past 20 years has a film won Best Picture without a Best Editing nomination, and that movie wasBirdman—an exception if there ever was one. But will Cooper’s snub spur a flurry ofA Star Is Bornsupport? Will the agreeability ofRomafavor that film on the preferential ballot? WillGreen Booktake home the gold, controversy be damned? There’s still a lot of runway left, and given how ugly this season has been thus far, I imagine it’s only gonna get uglier.
So buckle up, folks. The final phase of awards season is here and Best Picture is kind of wide open. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
