Sinners made Oscar history today with an absolute record of 16 nominations, also achieved thanks to the new casting category. Ryan Coogler’s political horror shattered the record of Titanic and La La Land so far on par with 14 nominations.
The Night of the Stars, scheduled for March 15th with comedian Conan O’Brien back on stage, promises to be a close duel: behind Coogler there is, with 13 nominations, One Battle After Another, the dark comedy by Paul Thomas Anderson (also nominated for the direction and performances of Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn) in an increasingly international edition of the awards: two productions not in English – the Brazilian The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonca and the Norwegian Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier – are in the running for the most prestigious top ten, that for best film.
The Sinners, set in racist Mississippi in 1932, is up for best picture, acting (Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo), direction and best original screenplay (Coogler), as well as score, original song, cinematography, production design, costumes, sound, editing, make-up and hairstyling, casting and visual effects. The 13 nominations for One Battle After Another represent a heavy mortgage on the awards for Warner which has totaled 30 nominations overall while the duel over its future between Netflix and Paramount is underway. Still in terms of productions, Neon is at 18, Netflix has reached 16, followed by Focus Features (Universal) with 13 and A24 (11).
Among the films, Frankenstein by Guillermo Del Toro, Marty Supreme by Josh Safdie and Sentimental Value took home nine nominations each, while the Shakespearean Hamnet by Chloé Zhao (also in the running for director after winning with Nomadland in 2021) stopped at eight. The sensational surprise was the exclusion of Wicked – Part 2 just a year after the first film which had obtained ten nominations and two wins. The greats excluded from directing are Del Toro and the Iranian Jafar Panahi.
Among the actors Paul Mescal was snubbed unlike his Hamnet costar Jessie Buckley, while Chase Infiniti of One Battle After Another was penalized by the choice to nominate her among the best protagonists to make room in the secondary category for Teyana Taylor. At just 30 years old, Timothée Chalamet has become the youngest actor to obtain three nominations in his career: if he wins for Marty Supreme he will be the youngest after Adrien Brody who was 29 at the time of The Pianist.
Once again, international films performed well with a record four actors competing in languages other than English: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value and Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent. The previous record of three dates back to 1976 (Marie-Christine Barrault, Giancarlo Giannini and Liv Ullmann). With Familia by Francesco Costabile excluded from the shortlist and the two short films Eiru and Playing God by Bologna’s Matteo Burani and Giovanna Ferrari not making it into the top five, the recognition of the song Sweet Dreams of Joy from the documentary Viva Verdi! has an Italian flavour. on the retirement home for opera artists in Milan. The song performed by soprano Ana Maria Marinez runs against Dear Me from the documentary Diane Warren: Relentless; Golden from the KPop animated film Demon Hunters; I Lied To You from I Peccatori and Train Dreams from the film of the same name.