Fun with Numbers: 2022 Oscar Nominations
Share
Jane Campion becomes the second woman to be nominated for a best director Oscar as The Power of the Dog leads this year’s nominations with twelve. Dune follows with ten, none of them in any of the acting categories, and most surprisingly, Denis Villeneuve has not been nominated for director. Two other leading contenders with seven nods each are Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. The other six films nominated for best picture are Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, which scored a total of six nominations; Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, and Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley each received four; and with three each, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and Sian Heder’s CODA.
Campion and Spielberg first went head-to-head nearly thirty years ago. In 1993, a phenomenal year for both directors, Campion won the Palme d’Or in Cannes for The Piano and then became the second woman to be nominated for a best directing Oscar; the first was Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties (1975). Spielberg dominated that summer’s box office with Jurassic Park, a CGI milestone that was nominated for—and won—Oscars for sound, sound editing, and of course, visual effects. Schindler’s List came out at the end of the year and went on to rack up twelve Oscar nominations and seven wins, including best picture and director, beating out The Piano—seven nominations and three wins—in both categories.
Campion did win best original screenplay that year, and now she’s up for best adapted screenplay for The Power of the Dog, based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel. Benedict Cumberbatch, nominated for best actor, plays Phil Burbank, a tyrannical rancher in 1925 Montana. Phil bullies his brother, George (Jesse Plemons), and terrorizes George’s new wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), but ultimately finds himself taking a liking to Rose’s son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). All three supporting actors are up for Oscars, and so, too, is Ari Wegner, the second woman to be nominated for a best cinematography Oscar; the first was Rachel Morrison for her work on Dee Rees’s Mudbound (2018).
Spielberg was nominated three times for directing before he finally won for Schindler’s List. This year’s nomination for West Side Story is his eighth in the category. Branagh, in the meantime, has just become the first person to be nominated in seven separate categories. He hasn’t won one yet, but in 1989, he was up for best director and actor for Henry V. His live action short Swan Song was in the running in 1992, and his adapted screenplay for Hamlet was nominated in 1996. Playing Laurence Olivier in Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn scored him a best supporting actor nomination, and now his autobiographical Belfast adds best original screenplay to the list.
More fun with numbers: As Patrick Brzeski points out in the Hollywood Reporter, before this year, “no Japanese movie [had] ever been nominated in more than one category at once, although not for lack of worthy candidates.” Now Drive My Car is competing for best film, director, international film, and adapted screenplay, which Hamaguchi cowrote with Takamasa Oe, working from a short story by Haruki Murakami. In the international category, Drive My Car will go up against Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee, the first film to be nominated for that award and best animated feature and best documentary.
CODA, a big winner at Sundance last year, is not only the first Apple Original in the running it also features Marlee Matlin, who became the first deaf nominee—and winner—in 1986 for her performance in Randa Haines’s Children of a Lesser God. CODA’s cast also includes Troy Kotsur, who, with his supporting turn as a fisherman father, is now the first deaf male actor to be nominated. And let’s wrap for now with one more first. Before today’s nod for her leading turn as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, Kristen Stewart had never before been nominated—in any category.
For news and items of interest throughout the day, every day, follow @CriterionDaily.
