Against a backdrop of the writers’ strike and industry tensions, the nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday, Jan. 22, by Academy President Sid Ganis and Academy Award-Winning Actress Kathy Bates.
Leading the pack with eight nominations each, including Best Picture and Director, were front-runners There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic tale of an oil man in California, and No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers’ grim adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. Both films have already won numerous critics’ awards and were widely expected to have a strong showing.
Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton managed to join those two films in the Best Picture and Director categories, as well as garnering three acting nominations for George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton.
Atonement, the Joe Wright-directed British World War II drama, and Juno, Jason Reitman’s indie teen pregnancy comedy, also made the Best Picture shortlist.
Though not full of surprises, the morning’s announcement did bring with it a few unexpected developments.
Laura Linney, largely ignored up until now for her work in the Sundance dramedy The Savages, defied most expectations and received a Best Actress nomination. Julian Schnabel, director of the French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, was nominated for Best Director, despite his film’s failure to make the Best Picture lineup.
Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, expected to at least score a few nominations, was largely shut out, even in Best Song. Meanwhile, three songs from the children’s film Enchanted and one from the indie musical Once were nominated instead.
This year’s screenplay line-ups featured a refreshing amount of female writers, but it is the Best Actress category that could make Oscar history.
If 1965 Best Actress winner Julie Christie wins this year for her turn as a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in Away from Her, it would mark the longest time between Oscar victories since the ceremony’s beginnings in the 1920s.
Similarly, if fellow nominee Marion Cotillard were to win for her turn in the French film La Vie en Rose, it would be only the second time an actress has won in this category for a film in a foreign language, the first being Sophia Loren for 1960’s Two Women.
In addition, 20-year-old Ellen Page, nominated this year for her work in Juno, would be the youngest Best Actress winner to date were she to win this year.
Now that the nominations have been announced, the real waiting game begins.
Many actors and directors have publicly expressed that they will not attend the ceremony on Feb. 24 if the Writers’ Guild of America is still on strike.
Whether that means an abbreviated, televised press conference or no telecast at all remains unknown. Hopefully for Oscar followers everywhere, such a broadcast will be unnecessary, and the producers and writers will come to some sort of agreement before the big night.
The full list of this year’s nominees may be found online at oscars.org.
