Another year, another set of Oscar nominees and winners, chock full of new facts to impress your party guests and dominate the movie rounds at bar trivia. Study up before tonight's ceremony!
Best Picture
Kenneth Branagh is the fourth Irish nominee for Best Picture, and would be the first to win if Belfast triumphs.
CODA (directed by Sian Heder) and The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion) are the 17th and 18th Best Picture nominees directed by women. Either would be the 3rd to win, after The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009) and Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020).
Philippe Rousselet (CODA) is the 12th French producer to be nominated for Best Picture. He would be the 3rd to win, after Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker, 2009) and Thomas Langmann (The Artist, 2011).
If CODA, Don't Look Up, or The Power of the Dog win Best Picture, it will be the first time the Academy's top prize goes to a film distributed by a streaming platform. CODA is the first Apple TV+ film nominated for Best Picture, and Netflix has had seven Best Picture nominees: Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Mank, The Trial of the Chicago Seven, Don't Look Up, and The Power of the Dog.
Don't Look Up is the 10th film starring Leonardo DiCaprio to be nominated for Best Picture. Among living actors, that puts him one spot ahead of Tom Hanks (9), in a tie with Jack Nicholson, and second to only Robert De Niro, who has 11.
Including both Don't Look Up and Nightmare Alley, Cate Blanchett is the first woman to have appeared in nine Best Picture nominees, surpassing the previous record holder, Olivia de Havilland. Her Don't Look Up costar Meryl Streep ties de Havilland's old record with 8.
Drive My Car is the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture, and the 14th Best Picture nominee to have mostly non-English dialogue. This is the 4th year in a row with a non-English language Best Picture nominee, following Roma (2018), Parasite (2019), and Minari (2020).
Drive My Car is the 8th film nominated for both Best Picture and Best International Feature, joining Z (1969), The Emigrants (1971/72), Life is Beautiful (1998), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Amour (2012), Roma (2018), and Parasite (2019). Of those, only The Emigrants failed to win Best International Feature, and only Parasite won Best Picture.
Dune is the 12th science fiction film nominated for Best Picture, and the first one since 2016's Arrival—which was also directed by Denis Villeneuve. No science fiction film has ever won Best Picture.
King Richard would be the first sports film to win Best Picture since 2004's Million Dollar Baby, and only the fourth ever (the first two are Rocky and Chariots of Fire).
Will Smith is the second Black man to be nominated for both producing and acting in the same film for King Richard. The first was Denzel Washington (Fences, 2016).
Others to achieve the same feat include Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967; Heaven Can Wait, 1978; Reds, 1981; Bugsy, 1991); Bradley Cooper (American Sniper, 2014; A Star is Born, 2018), Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves, 1990); Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013); Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, 1992); Million Dollar Baby, 2004); Frances McDormand (Nomadland, 2020); and Brad Pitt (Moneyball, 2011).
The only person to have won Best Picture and an acting Oscar for the same film is McDormand.
If King Richard wins, Smith will be the third Black producer to take home a Best Picture Oscar, joining producer-directors Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, 2013) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, 2016).
Nightmare Alley's Best Picture nomination is Bradley Cooper's fourth as a producer—the same number of nominations he's received for acting. He's also got one screenplay nomination, bringing his total up to nine, but he's yet to win in any category.
Jane Campion is the 8th person from New Zealand nominated for Best Picture. If The Power of the Dog wins Best Picture, she'll be the third Kiwi winner in this category after The Lord of The Rings: Return of the King's Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.
Campion is the third woman to direct multiple Best Picture nominees. The others are Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2009; Zero Dark Thirty, 2011) and Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, 2017; Little Women, 2019).
The Power of the Dog would arguably be the fifth Western to win Best Picture, and the first since (also arguably) No Country for Old Men in 2007.
Steven Spielberg received his 11th career nomination in the Best Picture category as a producer on West Side Story. He is the most nominated person in this category's history.
West Side Story is the 12th film directed by Spielberg to be nominated for Best Picture. He is second to only William Wyler (13).
He was not nominated as a producer on the first two—Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark—but was credited as a producer on Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima in 2006.
West Side Story is the first remake of a Best Picture nominee to be nominated for Best Picture, and would be the first remake of a Best Picture-winning film to achieve a repeat win.
It would be the second remake ever to win the Academy's top prize, after The Departed (2006), a remake of the Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs. CODA, Nightmare Alley, and Dune are also remakes.
It would be the 8th musical to win Best Picture, and the first since Chicago (2002).
Licorice Pizza is the first MGM film nominated for Best Picture since 1988's Rain Man.
If CODA, Don't Look Up, Dune, King Richard, or Nightmare Alley win Best Picture, it would be the only the sixth time a film won Best Picture without a corresponding Best Director nomination.
Best Director
Kenneth Branagh is one of five Irish filmmakers to be nominated for Best Director. If he takes home the trophy for Belfast, he would be the first to win.
Jane Campion is the first woman to receive a second Oscar nomination for directing. Her first came in 1993 for The Piano, which made her only the second woman ever nominated in this category (seven women have been nominated in this category to date).
Campion would be the third female directing winner after Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2009) and last year's Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)—which would also make her the second consecutive female winner in this category.
Campion was the first filmmaker from New Zealand nominated in this category for The Piano back in 1993. If she wins this year, she'll be the second Kiwi winner, after Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003).
Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the third Japanese filmmaker nominated for directing and the first in over 35 years. His previous countrymen nominated in this category were Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Woman in the Dunes, 1965) and Akira Kurosawa (Ran, 1985).
Hamaguchi is the 30th director to earn a nomination for a film not in the English language, and Drive My Car is the 35th non-English language film to be recognized in this category.
This is the fourth year in a row that a non-English language film is nominated for directing. If he wins, Hamaguchi would be the third winner for such a film over those four years (and also the third ever!), after Alfonso Cuarón (Roma, 2018) and Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, 2019).
With his 8th directing nomination for West Side Story, Steven Spielberg has pulled into a tie with Billy Wilder for the third-most directing nominations of all time. Spielberg is only one career nomination behind second-place Martin Scorsese (9), but they both still trail the all-time leader William Wyler (12).
If Spielberg were to win a third directing Oscar for West Side Story, he would move into a tie for second place in the record books with Wyler and Frank Capra—just one win away from four-time champ John Ford.
Spielberg is the only person to have been Oscar nominated for directing in six consecutive decades: the 1970s, 1980s (twice), 1990s (twice), 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.
At age 75, Spielberg is the 9th oldest directing nominee of all time, and would be the oldest winner—the current record holder is Clint Eastwood, who was 74 years old when he won Best Director for Million Dollar Baby in 2004.
Spielberg is the only filmmaker to appear in the top ten lists of oldest and youngest Best Director nominees. He was only 31 when he received his first directing nomination for Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, making him also the 10th youngest directing nominee to date.
All of this year's directing nominees received nominations in multiple categories, adding nominations for producing (Spielberg), writing (Hamaguchi), or both (Branagh, Campion, Anderson) to their overall totals.
If Anderson, Branagh, or Campion manage to sweep their three nominations, they'd become the ninth filmmaker to score that particular hat trick: winning producing, directing, and writing Oscars on the same night.
Campion would be the first woman to achieve that feat.
Kenneth Branagh has been nominated across eight times across seven different categories in his career: Best Picture, Best Director, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, and Live Action Short—the most of any individual in Academy history.
Even more astounding, his second directing nomination for Belfast is the first repeat nomination he's had in a single category.
He has yet to win in any category.
Similarly, Paul Thomas Anderson has 11 career nominations spread across four categories: three in Best Picture, three for directing, and five for screenwriting (three original, two adapted).
And like Branagh, he has yet to win one.
Actors
Will Smith is the fifth Black performer to receive a third acting nomination at the Oscars—the others are Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer. If he wins, he would be the 5th Black actor to take home the Oscar for Best Actor, and the 21st across all four acting categories.
With his 9th acting nomination for The Tragedy of Macbeth, Denzel Washington extends his record as the most nominated Black actor of all time and jumps up to third in the overall rankings for male actors in a tie with Paul Newman, Al Pacino, and Spencer Tracy. With one more nomination, he'll move into a second place tie with Laurence Olivier at 10, inching closer to the all-time male record holder Jack Nicholson at 12.
Washington has been nominated for acting in 5 consecutive decades: the 1980s (twice), 1990s (twice), 2000s , 2010s (three times), and 2020s.
If Washington wins a third acting Oscar for The Tragedy of Macbeth, he would become the eighth performer to have won three or more acting prizes from the Academy. The others are Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Walter Brennan, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Frances McDormand (Denzel's Macbeth costar), and Katharine Hepburn—who is the only person to have won four acting awards.
If he wins, Andrew Garfield would become the first Best Actor winner for a performance in a musical since Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964). Benedict Cumberbatch would become the first Best Actor winner for a Western since John Wayne in True Grit (1969). Either would be the 20th British performer to win Best Actor.
If Benedict Cumberbatch wins, he'll be the eighth Oscar winner from the cast of Avengers: Endgame (and somehow, almost undoubtedly the one with the most screentime).
Married couple Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are the only Spanish actors to receive multiple acting nominations—each received their fourth nomination this year. If either wins, they would become the first Spanish actor to win multiple Oscars. Only three Spaniards have ever been nominated for acting Oscars: the third is Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory, 2019).
With her nomination for Parallel Mothers, Cruz is the seventh actor to receive multiple nominations for non-English language performances, after Bardem, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Liv Ullmann, Isabelle Adjani, and Marion Cotillard.
If Cruz wins, she will be the third Best Actress winner for a non-English language performance, after Loren and Cotillard. She would be the first actor to win multiple Oscars for predominantly non-English language performances.
Nicole Kidman and Olivia Colman have both won this category before. If either one wins, she will become the 15th multiple Best Actress winner in Academy history.
If she wins for her portrayal of Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos, Kidman would become the first actor to win an Oscar for playing an Emmy Award-winning actor.
Cate Blanchett, who was coincidentally originally attached to play Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos, is the only actor to have won an Oscar for playing another Oscar winner: Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004).
Kidman and Blanchett are the only Australian actresses to ever win Oscars.
Olivia Colman is the only one of this year's acting nominees to have also been nominated last year (The Father).
For their parallel performances as Leda Caruso across different time periods in The Lost Daughter, Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman become the third pair of actors both nominated for playing the same character in the same film. Both previous instances featured Kate Winslet: first as Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic alongside Gloria Stuart in 1997, and then again in 2001's Iris with Judi Dench as the title character, Iris Murdoch.
Leda Caruso is the 28th role for which multiple actors have received Oscar nominations, and with Ariana DeBose's nomination for West Side Story, Anita is the 29th overall and the only role to receive multiple nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category.
Surprisingly, the titular role of The Tragedy of Macbeth is not on that list. Denzel Washington is the first performer ever nominated for portraying the Thane of Cawdor.
The only roles to have won multiple Oscars are Vito Corleone from The Godfather series and the Joker from the Batman franchise.
If DeBose wins this year, or if both Colman and Buckley win, we'll have a third.
Colman and Buckley would be the first pair to do it for the same film.
Ariana DeBose is the 11th person of Latin American descent nominated for Best Supporting Actress and would be the third to win, after Rita Moreno (West Side Story, 1961) and Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King, 1991). But DeBose is only the fourth U.S.-born Latina to be nominated in this category, after Moreno, Ruehl, and Susan Kohner (Imitation of Life, 1959).
If DeBose wins, she'll be the third actor to win an Oscar for a performance in a Steven Spielberg film, joining Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies).
DeBose and Aunjanue Ellis are the 22nd and 23rd Black actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and the 33rd and 34th Black actresses nominated overall. If one of them wins, she would be the 10th Oscar-winning Black actress in Academy history—and the 9th in this category.
Ellis is the 9th cast member of 2011 Best Picture nominee The Help to receive an Oscar nomination for acting. If she or Jessica Chastain win, either would become the 7th winner to have appeared in that film, joining castmates Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, and Allison Janney (and if both win, that would obviously make it 8!).
The only other cast member of The Help to have received a nomination without winning is Cicely Tyson, who was nominated for Best Actress in 1972 for Sounder and received an Honorary Award in 2018.
At age 87, Judi Dench is the second-oldest Best Supporting Actress nominee in Academy history, after Gloria Stuart (Titanic, 1997). Dench would be the oldest winner not only in this category—besting current champ Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India, 1984), but in any acting category. She is four years older than Anthony Hopkins was when he took home Best Actor last year for The Father.
Dame Judi Dench received her 8th nomination for Belfast, tying her with Geraldine Page and Glenn Close as the Academy's fourth-most-nominated actress. Bette Davis is third with 10 career nominations, and Katharine Hepburn sits in second with 12. Then there's a long gap before the Academy's all-time leader, 21-time nominee Meryl Streep.
Dench has been nominated in four consecutive decades: 1990s (twice), 2000s (four times), 2010s, and 2020s.
If you combine all actors into one list, regardless of gender, Denzel Washington and his 9-timers cohort are in a four-way tie for sixth place, behind Laurence Olivier and Bette Davis (10), Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn (12), and Meryl Streep (21). Dench is just one spot behind Washington alongside five other eight-time nominees: Glenn Close, Geraldine Page, Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, and Peter O'Toole.
Jessie Buckley is the sixth Irish actress nominated for a supporting performance. She would be the second to win, after Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot, 1989).
Ciarán Hinds is the fourth Irish actor to be nominated for a performance in a supporting role, joining Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way, 1944), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave, 2013), and his Belfast director Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn, 2011). Fitzgerald is the only Irish winner in this category thus far.
Including Buckley and Hinds, a total of 16 Irish performers have been nominated for acting Oscars. The only past winners are Fitzgerald, Fricker, and three-time winner Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, 1989; There Will Be Blood, 2007; Lincoln, 2012).
Kodi Smit-McPhee is the fourth Australian performer nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He would be the second to win, after Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008). Smit-McPhee is the 18th Aussie actor to be nominated across all four acting categories, and would be the 7th to win.
At age 25, Smit-McPhee would be the second youngest Best Supporting Actor winner in history, behind only Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People, 1980), who was 20 years old when he won. Smit-McPhee would be only the sixth male actor to win an Oscar in his 20s, joining Best Supporting Actor winners Hutton, Ledger, George Chakiris (West Side Story, 1961), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire, 1996), and Best Actor winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, 2002).
This is Jesse Plemons's first nomination, but it's the fifth consecutive year in which he has appeared in a Best Picture nominee: The Post (2017), Vice (2018), The Irishman (2019), Judas and the Black Messiah (2020), and The Power of the Dog (2021).
Troy Kotsur is the 12th actor to receive a nomination for a performance in sign language. If he wins, he will be the second deaf actor to win an Academy Award, joining his CODA co-star Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, 1986).
Aside from J.K. Simmons, who won in this category for 2014's Whiplash, the rest of this year's Best Supporting Actor nominees are all first-timers.
Screenplays
Kenneth Branagh would be the second Irish winner in the Best Original Screenplay category (Neil Jordan, The Crying Game, 1992), and the third Irish screenwriting winner overall (George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, 1938).
Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt are the first writers nominated for a screenplay written in Norwegian. They are the second and third nominated screenwriters from Norway, after Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, 2006).
The Worst Person in the World would be the seventh non-English language screenplay to win this award, after Marie-Louise (Swiss-German, 1945), The Red Balloon (French, 1956), Divorce Italian Style (Italian, 1962), A Man and a Woman (French, 1966), Talk To Her (Spanish, 2002), and Parasite (Korean, 2019).
Since 2011, every winner of the Best Original Screenplay Oscar has been the film's director as well as its screenwriter. That bodes well for Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World), Adam McKay (Don't Look Up), and Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza). If Zach Baylin wins for King Richard, that 10-year streak will be broken.
Drive My Car is the first Japanese film nominated for a screenwriting Oscar, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe are the first Japanese writers to be nominated.
Drive My Car would be the first non-English language screenplay to win in the adapted category.
If Jane Campion wins for The Power of the Dog, she will be the 12th person and first woman to win Oscars for both screenplay categories. She won Best Original Screenplay in 1993 for The Piano.
Campion is the eighth Australian nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. She'd be the second Aussie winner in this category.
Campion, Sian Heder, or Maggie Gyllenhaal could become the 12th woman to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Heder or Gyllenhaal would also become the 25th woman to win a screenplay Oscar in either category (Campion is already on the list, having won previously).
Maggie Gyllenhaal and her mother, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, are the first mother-daughter pair to have received screenwriting nominations from the Academy. Naomi was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1988 for Running On Empty.
All five of the Adapted Screenplay nominees were either written or co-written by the film's director. As far as I can tell, this is the first time that's happened in this category. It's more common on the Original Screenplay side of things—all the original screenplay nominees were either written or co-written by their directors in 1996, 2005, 2019, and 2020.
As far as winners go, it helps to be a writer-director: six of the last ten winners for Adapted Screenplay were also the film's director.
If Drive My Car wins, it'll be the third Adapted Screenplay winner based on a short story after All About Eve (1950) and Brokeback Mountain (2005).
More than half of the Best Adapted Screenplay winners are based on novels: Don't Look Up, The Power of the Dog, or The Lost Daughter would be the 48th novel-to-film adaptation to bring home the Oscar.
Costume Design
West Side Story's Paul Tazewell is the first Black man to be nominated for Best Costume Design, and the third Black nominee in this category overall. He would be the second Black winner, after Ruth E. Carter (Black Panther, 2018).
Massimo Cantini Parisi's costume design nomination for Cyrano is his second straight nomination in this category. He is the 15th Italian designer nominated. He shares his nomination with eight-time nominee and two-time winner Jacqueline Durran.
Dune is the fourth nomination for Jacqueline West, alongside first-time nominee Bob Morgan.
If either Dune or Cyrano win, it will be the first time Best Costume Design goes to multiple designers for the same film since The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003.
This is the eleventh nomination for Cruella's Jenny Beavan, a previous two-time winner and the only Oscar winner to ever take the stage wearing a leather jacked emblazoned with a bedazzled flaming steering wheel (Mad Max: Fury Road).
This is the second nomination for Luis Sequeira (Nightmare Alley), who is also the second Canadian ever nominated in this category. His first nomination was for another Guillermo Del Toro film: Best Picture-winner The Shape of Water.
Makeup and Hairstyling
House of Gucci's Frederic Aspiras is the second person of Asian descent nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, after four time nominee Kazu Hiro (Click, 2006; Norbit, 2007; Darkest Hour, 2017; Bombshell, 2019)
Best Makeup and Hairstyling features two sets of Swedish nominees: Love Larson and Eva von Bahr (Dune) and Anna Carin Lock and Göran Lundström (House of Gucci). If either film wins, they will become the first winners from Sweden in this category.
Cinematography
The Power of the Dog's Ari Wegner is only the second woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography, after Rachel Morrison (Mudbound, 2017). Wegner would be the first woman to win in this category.
Wegner or Greig Fraser (Dune) could become the 7th Australian to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography, while Bruno Delbonnel (The Tragedy of Macbeth) would be the 5th French director of photography to win.
Janusz Kamiński (West Side Story) is one of eight Polish cinematographers nominated for Oscars. He's the only one to have won—which he's done twice (Schindler's List, 1993; Saving Private Ryan, 1998). If Kamiński wins a third for West Side Story, he would be the 11th DP to reach that mark.
Dan Laustsen (Nightmare Alley) would become the first Danish cinematographer to win an Oscar.
Film Editing
Pamela Martin (King Richard) would be the 14th woman to win the Oscar for Best Editing.
Peter Sciberras (The Power of the Dog) would be the 4th Australian editor to win in this category.
If Tick, Tick...Boom! wins, it will be the first film not nominated for Best picture to win Best Film Editing since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011.
Don't Look Up would be the first comedy to win in this category since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988.
Dune would be the fourth sci fi movie to win Best Film Editing, after Star Wars, The Matrix, and Gravity.
Visual Effects
Shang-Chi and Spider-Man: No Way Home are the 11th and 12th Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies nominated for Best Visual Effects. It's the most frequent category MCU films are recognized in, but none have won the award so far.
In fact, the only MCU film to win an Oscar in any categories is Black Panther, which won Best Production Design, Costume Design, and Original Score in 2018.
No Time to Die is the third Bond film nominated in this category, after Thunderball (1966) and Moonraker (1980).
Dune is the only Best Picture nominee in this category this year, which bodes well for its chances. The only time a non-Best Picture nominee has triumphed over a Best Picture nominee in this category was in 2015, when Ex Machina beat Best Picture nominees Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, and The Martian.
Music
Encanto's Germaine Franco is the 10th woman ever nominated for a musical score, and the 4th woman nominated for Best Original Score since the category took its current form in 1999. Since then, the only female winner is Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, 2019)—although Rachel Portman (Emma, 1996) and Anne Dudley (The Full Monty, 1997) won best Original Musical or Comedy Score back when the category was split by genre, and Marilyn Bergman (Yentl, 1983) won in the now defunct Original Song Score category.
Franco is the first Latina nominated for Best Original Score.
Encanto is the 31st animated film nominated for Best Original Score. It would be the 10th animated film to win this category. All previous animated winners of Best Original Score were also Disney films (including two from Pixar).
Hans Zimmer's 12th Best Original Score nomination for Dune puts him behind 11 other composers in the all-time record books for this category. He shares the 12th place spot with fellow twelve-timer Johnny Green. A win for Dune would only be Zimmer's second Oscar; his first was for The Lion King (1994).
Zimmer is the only nominee in this category to have also won a Grammy Award.
Alberto Iglesias is one of two Spaniards ever nominated for Best Original Score, and the only one to have received multiple nominations. Neither he nor his countryman Javier Navarrete (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006) have won the award.
Composer Jonny Greenwood, who moonlights as the lead guitarist for a little band called Radiohead, is looking to follow in the footsteps of last year's winners, fellow rockers-turned-composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
This is Nicholas Britell's third nomination, and his first for a film not directed by Barry Jenkins. He's yet to win an Oscar, but he is the only nominee in this category to have won an Emmy Award, which he took home in 2019 for the main title theme to Succession.
Every nominated songwriting team in the Best Original Song category this year has at least one Grammy Award to their name: Diane Warren (1), Van Morrison (2), Lin-Manuel Miranda (3), Billie Eilish (7), Finneas O'Connell (8), and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (28!) are all hoping to bring home an Oscar to add to their Grammy shelf (or shelves, in Beyoncé's case).
Diane Warren extends her nomination streak in this category to six years in a row and 13 overall with "Somehow You Do" from Four Good Days. Her first nomination came in 1987 ("Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" from Mannequin). She has yet to win.
The titular theme from No Time To Die is the sixth song from a James Bond film to be nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars. The other nominated tracks were "Nobody Does It Better" (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977), "Writings On the Wall" (Spectre, 2015), and the title songs from Live and Let Die (1973), For Your Eyes Only (1981), and Skyfall (2012). "No Time To Die" would be the third Bond song to win, after "Skyfall" and "Writings On the Wall."
If Lin-Manuel Miranda wins for "Dos Oruguitas" from Encanto, he will become the 16th person to complete an EGOT by winning all four major US entertainment industry awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Miranda would be the second Latino/a/x person to complete this feat, after Rita Moreno. He would be the 9th person to EGOT primarily for his work as a composer.
If you count special or honorary (i.e., non-competitive) awards, Miranda would be the 22nd person to EGOT.
Miranda would be only the third EGOT winner to have also won a Pulitzer Prize, in addition to fellow composers Richard Rodgers and Marvin Hamlisch.
Five people affiliated with the original Broadway production of Hamilton have been nominated for Academy Awards, including four this year: Ariana DeBose, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Questlove, Paul Tazewell, and last year's double-nominee Leslie Odom, Jr. None have yet won.
Miranda is the fourth US-born Latino nominated for Best Original Song. The other three are all previous winners: Irene Cara (the title song from Flashdance, 1983), Carly Simon ("Let The River Run," Working Girl, 1988), and Luis Resto ("Lose Yourself," 8 Mile, 2002)
"Dos Oruguitas" would be the 12th Best Original Song winner from a Disney movie.
Beyoncé would be the fourth Black woman to win the Oscar for Best Original Song, after Irene Cara (Flashdance, 1983), and H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas (Judas and the Black Messiah, 2020).
International Feature
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is Bhutan's first nominee in this category. This is only the second time they've ever submitted a film for consideration.
The Worst Person in the World is the 6th nominee in this category from Norway. No Norwegian film has ever won this category before.
This is the second time Denmark (Flee) and Norway (The Worst Person in the World) have both been nominated for International Feature in the same year. The first was in 2012, when Kon-Tiki (Norway) and A Royal Affair (Denmark) were both nominated (neither won).
Flee is the third documentary to be nominated for Best International Feature, after Honeyland (North Macedonia, 2019) and Collective (Romania, 2020). It's the second animated film nominated in this category, after Waltz with Bashir (Israel, 2008)
Flee is the first film to be simultaneously nominated in both International and Animated Feature, the third to be nominated in both International and Documentary Feature, and the only film to achieve a nomination in all three categories.
Flee is Denmark's 14th nominee in this category, and would be the 5th Danish winner. Denmark is the defending champion in this category—Another Round was last year's winner.
Drive My Car is the 17th Japanese film nominated in this category, and would be the 5th winner from Japan. Three of those previous winners received special awards before this category was regularly established.
The Hand of God is the 32nd nominee in this category from Italy, and would be their 15th winner. Like Japan, Italy received three special awards before this was a competitive category.
Italy's 14 wins in this category are more than any other nation. France is in second place with 12, and Japan and Denmark are currently tied with Spain in 3rd place with four wins apiece.
Italy, Japan, and Denmark are among the most nominated countries in this category. The top six countries represented in this category are France (40 nominations), Italy (32), Spain (20), Japan (17), Sweden (16), and Denmark (14).
Paolo Sorrentino, the director of The Hand of God, is the only filmmaker making a repeat appearance in this category this year. His film The Great Beauty won the Oscar for International Feature in 2013.
Three of the Best International Feature nominees (Drive My Car, Flee, The Worst Person in the World) received nominations in other categories. The last time that happened was just two years ago in 2019 (Honeyland, Pain and Glory, Parasite)
Animated Feature
This year marks only the third time that a majority of nominated films in the Animated Feature category were distributed by Disney (Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, and Pixar's Luca), and the first time that they've done so in a five-nominee field. The first two majority-Disney races occurred in 2003 and 2008, when this category featured only three nominees (Disney and Pixar combined for two nominees in each of those years, including winners Finding Nemo and Wall-E).
Including this year's Luca, Pixar has received 16 nominations for Best Animated Feature, the most of any studio. They've won 11 previous times—also a record.
Encanto and Raya and the Last Dragon are the 12th and 13th Disney Animation Studios films nominated in this category (tying them in second place behind Pixar with Dreamworks Animation). The House of Mouse's flagship studio has won Best Animated Feature 3 times (Dreamworks has 2, no other studio has more than one).
Enrico Casarosa (Luca) is the first Italian filmmaker nominated for Animated Feature. He was previously nominated for Best Animated Short for La Luna (2011).
Three of the films nominated for Best Animated Feature have at least one Latino on their nominated production team: Phil Lord (The Mitchells vs. The Machines), Carlos López Estrada (Raya and the Last Dragon), and Yvett Marino (Encanto). Lord is the only Latino to have won this category before (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018).
Flee is the 17th Animated Feature nominee originally produced in a language other than English. It would be the second non-English winner, after Spirited Away.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines is the third Netflix film nominated for Best Animated Feature, and the fourth nominee from Sony Animation (it was a co-production). No Netflix film has won this category before, but Sony Animation boasts Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, one of the best winners this category has ever produced.
Documentary Feature
Flee is the 26th documentary film to be nominated in non-documentary categories. This is the fourth year in a row that a documentary film has broken out beyond the documentary feature category—and the 8th time in the last 10 years.
Flee is the 6th Danish film nominated for Best Documentary Feature. It would be the first to win.
Jessica Kingdon (Ascension) is the second Taiwanese-American nominated for Best Documentary Feature, after Jimmy Chin (Free Solo). Ascension is the 16th film by an Asian or Asian-American filmmaker nominated in this category.
Attica (Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry) and Summer of Soul (Questlove) are the 14th and 15th documentaries by Black filmmakers nominated for this prize, and either would be the third to win.
This is the first nomination for acclaimed documentarian Stanley Nelson (Attica), who is a recipient of multiple Emmy awards, the MacArthur Genius grant, and the National Humanities Medal.
Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh (Writing with Fire) are the first Indian nominees for Best Documentary Feature.