‘Mank’ leads Oscars nominations in record year for women
Mank, David Fincher's black-and-white ode to Citizen Kane, comfortably led this year's Oscars nominations Monday with 10 nods including for best picture and best director, as female filmmakers and streamers smashed Academy records.
The Netflix reimagining of Hollywood's Golden Age was far ahead of the competition following the announcement, which saw six films receive six nominations apiece including US road movie Nomadland and anti-Vietnam War courtroom drama The Trial of the Chicago 7.
In a year that saw a record 70 women nominated, there were directing nods for Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)—the first year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has ever selected multiple women in the category.
The nominations narrow the field to the final hopefuls for April 25, the latest-ever date for Hollywood's award season-capping spectacle which has been transformed and delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Zhao is the first woman of color ever nominated as director, while Aaron Sorkin (Chicago 7) had to settle for a screenplay nomination after missing out to the likes of Fincher and Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round).
The Academy awarded a historically diverse field, including six nods to civil rights drama Judas and the Black Messiah featuring Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield, and a first Asian-American best actor nod for Steven Yuen in Korean-American immigrant drama Minari.
The other films tied in second with six nominations were Amazon's Sound of Metal, about a rock drummer who loses his hearing, and harrowing dementia chronicle The Father, which saw former winner Anthony Hopkins bag a sixth career acting nod.
Ahead of the nominations announcement, Academy president David Rubin confirmed this year's Oscars would be broadcast from Los Angeles' cavernous Union Station as well as its traditional Dolby Theatre home in Hollywood.
Celebrity couple Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas then read out the nominees in a live-stream from London.
‘Used to streaming'’
No streaming film has ever won the Academy's most prestigious prize—best picture.
But with most US movie theaters closed all year due to COVID, several big-screen studio blockbusters skipped their 2020 releases entirely, leaving an eclectic field of hopefuls that favored the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Netflix dominated the nominations Monday, earning 35 stabs at glory, smashing its own record of 24 set last year.
It earned multiple nods with 1920s blues drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which saw Chadwick Boseman land a rare posthumous best actor nomination following his death from cancer last August.
Boseman missed out on a second, supporting acting nod for Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, also from Netflix.
Rival Amazon Prime broke its own record with 12 nods, including three nominations for another civil rights-themed movie, One Night in Miami, and two for comedy Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Appropriately, with Hollywood's private screening rooms and glitzy film campaign events shuttered, even Oscar voters watched nearly all the 366 contenders via the Academy's own online streaming platform.
"We are almost used to streaming now," said one member of the Academy, which has traditionally championed the big-screen experience. "It's quite incredible what can happen within a year."
New streamers Disney+ and Apple earned their first-ever Oscar nominations.
But for top prize, streamers will still need to get past presumed best picture frontrunner Nomadland, which has dominated early festival and award season prizes including the Golden Globes.
The intimate US road movie comes from Searchlight—the arthouse distributor now owned by Disney which has steered the likes of The Shape of Water and Birdman to recent Oscars glory.
Its director Zhao is the first woman to receive four nominations in a single year—also earning nods for editing, screenplay and as a producer—and Frances McDormand contends for best actress.
‘Areas of fluidity’
Contagion director Steven Soderbergh will produce this year's pandemic-struck Oscars, which relaxed eligibility criteria to admit more streaming titles and movies released in early 2021.
While locations are now confirmed, precise details of the ceremony will depend on local Covid restrictions in Los Angeles, where movie theaters are among indoor businesses set to reopen at limited capacity this week after a brutal winter COVID-19 spike.
Unlike last year, clear frontrunners are yet to emerge in the acting categories, with Variety film awards editor Clayton Davis noting that there are many "areas of fluidity."
Borat co-star Maria Bakalova, who was nominated Monday, has become "a darling of this year's quarantine campaign trail," he wrote.
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey) was also picked alongside McDormand, Carey Mulligan for Promising Young Woman and Andra Day for The United States vs Billie Holiday.
Along with Boseman and Hopkins, the lead actor category was rounded out by Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Gary Oldman (Mank) and Steven Yeun (Minari). (AFP)
The full list of Oscar 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
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
Lakeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Another Round, Denmark
Better Days, Hong Kong
Collective, Romania
The Man Who Sold His Skin, Tunisia
Qu Vadis, Aida? Bosnia and Herzegovina
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
Colette
A Concerto Is a Conversation
Do Not Split
Hunger Ward
A Love Song For Latasha
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Collective
Crip Camp
The Mole Agent
My Octopus Teacher
Time
ORIGINAL SONG
Fight For You from Judas and the Black Messiah
Hear My Voice from The Trial of the Chicago 7
Husavik from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
lo Sì (Seen) from The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se)
Speak Now from One Night in Miami...
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Onward
Over the Moon
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Soul
Wolfwalkers
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Borat Subsequent MovieFilm
The Father
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
The White Tiger
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Judas and the Black Messiah
Minari
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
DIRECTOR
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round
David Fincher, Mank
Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Chloe Zhao, Nomadland
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Father
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mank
News of the World
Tenet
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Sean Bobbitt, Judas and the Black Messiah
Erik Messerschmidt, Mank
Dariusz Wolski, News of the World
Joshua James Richards, Nomadland
Phedon Papamichael , The Trial of the Chicago 7
COSTUME DESIGN
Emma
Ma Rainey's Blackbottom
Mank
Mulan
Pinocchio
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND
Greyhound
Mank
News of the World
Soul
Sound of Metal