The 90th Academy Award Nominations have finally been announced! And if you’re like me, you probably were sitting in a comfortable spot waiting for the YouTube live stream to begin. Happy to report that I watched the live stream with no issues!
The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro’s triumphant return, leads with thirteen nominations. Very well-deserved. It was followed by Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which received seven.
However, this year, the Academy has decided to step away from their gender bias, and recognize more women than usual in categories that are usually left to men. Rachel Morrison made history with her nomination. She became the first woman nominated for cinematography for her painterly photography in Mudbound. Her competitors are all men: Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049, Bruno Delbonnel for Darkest Hour, Hoyte van Hoytema for Dunkirk and Dan Laustsen for The Shape of Water. In the original screenplay category, there were three nominated women: Emily Gordon for her work with her husband Kumail Nanjiani in The Big Sick, Vanessa Taylor for her work with Guillermo del Toro in The Shape of Water—which also was nominated for best picture—, and Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird, which also received a Best Picture nomination.
Finally, the animated feature category included three women: Nora Twomey for her work with Anthony Lee in The Breadwinner, Darla K. Anderson for her work with Lee Unkrich in Coco, and Dorota Kobiela for her work with Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart in Loving Vincent.
Probably the biggest excitement of the nominations was Greta Gerwig’s nomination for Best Director for her debut film Lady Bird. She is the fourth woman to ever receive a nomination in that category and only one has ever won, Kathryn Bigelow (check out our article about this inspirational woman here). If Gerwig were to win, she’d be the second ever, and the first to win for a contemporary film since Bigelow’s win was for a war film.
One of my favorite films of 2017, Blade Runner 2049, dominated the special effects categories followed by The Shape of Water and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The film Get Out received four nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Director nomination for Jordan Peele. If Peele were to win, he’d be the first African American director to win the award. I had strong feelings about this film during the Golden Globes, so hopefully, the Academy recognizes the excellence behind it. Daniel Kaluuya, the film’s protagonist, received a Best Actor nomination. Quite surprising and very much deserved.
The biggest surprise to me was Phantom Thread. This film was not present in the past awards and managed to receive six nominations, including a Best Actor one for Daniel Day-Lewis who had mentioned he was retiring from acting. Frankly, if “retiring” means picking up Oscar nominations, then he should say he’s going to continue working to see what happens.
Christopher Plummer received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in All the Money in the World. This is a huge deal since it is well known that Plummer replaced the disgraced Kevin Spacey after his many scandals were revealed. A big win indeed. James Franco was snubbed for his role in The Disaster Artist, possibly due to the recent sexual harassment revelations against him.
The Greatest Showman received only one nomination for Best Song for “This Is Me,” and I am getting my tissues ready for the live performance.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri received seven nominations. I am hoping it wins at least two, but based on the SAG Awards and Golden Globe Awards, it seems like it might take all the gold. We’ll see. Same goes for Darkest Hour, the Oscar is already in Gary Oldman’s hands. We would save ourselves ten minutes worth of speech by giving it to him during Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue.
There is so much to cover and we are just getting started! The countdown for the 90th Academy Awards has officially begun and March 4th can’t come sooner!
Check out the full list of nominations here and what are your predictions for the winners?
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Picture Credit: The New York Times