‘Oppenheimer’ leads Oscar nods with 13

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NEW YORK, Jan 23, (AP): After a tumultuous movie year marred by strikes and work stoppages, the Academy Awards showered nominations Tuesday on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, “Oppenheimer,” which came away with a leading 13 nominations. Nolan’s three-hour opus, viewed as the best picture frontrunner, received nods for best picture; Nolan’s direction; acting nominations for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt; and multiple honors for the craft of the J. Robert Oppenheimer drama. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” wasn’t far behind with eight nominations, including nods for best picture; Ryan Gosling for best supporting actor; and two best-song candidates in “What Was I Made For” and “I’m Just Ken.” But Gerwig was surprisingly left out of the best director field. Both Martin Scorsese’s Osage epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff “Poor Things” were also widely celebrated. “Poor Things” landed 11 nods, while “Killers of the Moon” was nominated for 10 Oscars.

Nominated
Lily Gladstone, star of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” became the first Native American nominated for best actress. For the 10th time, Scorsese was nominated for best director. Leonardo DiCaprio, though, was left out of best actor. Those four contenders made for a maximalist quartet of Oscar heavyweights. Nolan’s sprawling biopic. Gerwig’s near-musical. Scorsese’s pitch-black Western. Lanthimos’ sumptuously designed fantasy. Each utilized a wide spectrum of cinematic tools to tell big, often disturbing bigscreen stories. And each – even Apple’s biggest-budgeted movie yet, “Killers of the Flower Moon” – had robust theatrical releases that saved streaming for months later.

The 10 films nominated for best picture were: “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “American Fiction,” “Past Lives,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest.”

The nominees for best actress are: Annette Bening, “Nyad” Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”; Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”; Emma Stone, “Poor Things.”

The nominees for best actor are: Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”; Colman Domingo, “Rustin”; Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”; Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”; Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction.”

The nominees for best supporting actor: Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”; Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”; Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”; Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things.”

The nominees for best director are: Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”; Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”; Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”; Martin Scorsese “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest.”

The nominees for best international film are: “Society of the Snow,” (Spain); “The Zone of Interest,” (United Kingdom); “The Teachers’ Lounge” (Germany); “Io Capitano” (Italy) ; “Perfect Days” (Japan).

Compete
The nominees for best-animated film are: “The Boy and the Heron”; “Elemental”; “Nimona”; “Robot Dreams”; “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Among the nominated films is the Ukraine war documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” which is a joint production between The Associated Press and PBS’ Frontline and will compete in the best documentary category. Oscar season has reunited “Oppenheimer” with its summer box-office partner, “Barbie.” Gerwig’s feminist blockbuster is easily the biggest hit of the year with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales. “20 Days in Mariupol,” Mstyslav Chernov’s harrowing chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia’s invasion, has been nominated for best documentary at the Academy Awards, handing The Associated Press its first Oscar nomination in the 178-year-old news organization’s history.

The film, a co-production between the AP and PBS’ “Frontline,” was shot during the first three weeks of the war in Ukraine, in early 2022. Chernov, a Ukrainian journalist and filmmaker, arrived in Mariupol one hour before Russia began bombarding the port city. With him were photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko.

The images and stories they captured – the death of a 4-year-old girl, freshly dug mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital – unflinchingly documented the grim, relentless realities of the unfolding siege. Their work, along with that of Lori Hinnant, last year won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and featured prominently in a Pulitzer for breaking news photography. Since the Sundance Film Festival premiere of “20 Days in Mariupol” a year ago, Chernov’s film has been hailed as one of the most important nonfiction films of the year. It’s also been nominated by the BAFTAs, the Producers Guild, and the Directors Guild for best documentary, and the Academy also shortlisted it for best international film. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is nearing the two-year mark. Fighting through the winter is mired along a 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line. In recent months, Russian aerial attacks have sharply increased civilian casualties.

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