Hollywood professional guilds announced their Oscar nominees

Hollywood professional guilds – acting and directing – announced nominees for their prizes. Their colleagues who played in “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” became the favorites of the actors; the directors also nominated these films for their awards. Comments Julia Shagelman.

Meme-intensive confrontation “Barbie” Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which began with the premiere of these films on the same day in July 2023, continues into the awards season and will apparently end only at the Oscars. Both films received four nominations at the Actors Guild Awards (SAG Awards), including the main one – “Best cast in a film”. “Barbie” is also nominated in the category “Best stunt cast in a film”, and Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who played in it, can win best actress and best supporting actor, respectively. Cillian Murphy, who played the title role in Oppenheimer, is in contention to win the nomination. “Best Actor”, and his partners on the set Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt will compete with other supporting actors and actresses.

The competitors of the main film couple of the year in the category “Best Cast in a Film” were “American Fiction” by Cord Jefferson, “The Color Purple” by Blitz Bazavule and “Killers of the Flower Moon” by Martin Scorsese. The latter also nominated Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro for awards (“Best Supporting Actor”).

One of the surprises presented by SAG was the absence of Leonardo DiCaprio, who also played in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in the category “Best Actor,” while the role of critics is called one of the best in his career. In addition, colleagues completely ignored the cast of the psychological drama May December by Todd Haynes: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and newcomer Charles Melton, who were considered the frontrunners of the awards season, were left without nominations, as was Greta Lee from the melodrama Past Lives by Celine Sohn . Instead, the Actors Guild noted Annette Bening and Jodie Foster from the sports-biographical drama “Diana Naked” by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi in the categories “Best Actress” And “Best Supporting Actress” respectively. Penelope Cruz, who played Enzo Ferrari’s wife in Michael Mann’s film, also quite unexpectedly burst into the latter.

Lily Gladstone’s main rival in her category is now considered to be Emma Stone (“The Lost and Lost”) – both actresses received according to the Golden Globe and have a serious chance of winning. Another slot in this category was taken by Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”). Cillian Murphy, in turn, is still leading the forecasts in his category, which includes Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Leftovers”) and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”).

The SAG awards are traditionally considered one of the most important indicators of future Oscars. During the entire existence of this award, since 1995, only four films have become best films as chosen by film academics without a nomination from the guild for best cast.

These are Braveheart (1995), The Shape of Water (2017), Green Book (2018) and Nomadland (2020). And last year, all four acting Oscars went to SAG Awards winners. This, however, does not completely negate the chances of the performers passed over by the guild for at least a nomination – there are also such precedents, and at least DiCaprio is too early to curtail the award campaign.

The Directors Guild Awards (DGA Awards) also have significance in the Oscar context: since their inception in 1948, the DGA and the Academy have only been voted out of favor eight times. The last time this happened was in 2020, when Sam Mendes won the guild prize for “1917” and the director’s Oscar went to Bong Chun-ho for “Parasite.”

This time, the DGA ignored the season’s non-English favorites: Justine Trieu’s Anatomy of a Fall and Jonathan Glaser’s Zone of Interest. Also, Todd Haynes and Bradley Cooper with the Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” did not receive her attention. And the award nominees for best director of a feature film became Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lost and Lost”) and Alexander Payne (“The Leftovers”). Celine Son and Cord Jefferson are nominated in the category “Best Directorial Debut”, where they included Chilean Manuela Martelli (“1976”), Australian Noura Niasari (“Shaida”) and their American colleague A. V. Rockwell (“A Thousand and One”). As last year, female directors dominate the debut category, but a place in the main category is still an exception.

The DGA Awards will be presented on February 10th of this year, and the SAG Awards will be presented on the 24th (this ceremony will be broadcast live on Netflix for the first time). Their results will introduce new amendments to the Oscar schedule and mark the final stage of the awards season, which will end with the distribution of the Academy Awards on March 10.