Mank leads nominations for 93rd Oscars with 10

At this morning's Academy Award nominations, Netflix's Mank pulled ahead, as expected. The movie, which is itself about Hollywood, picked up 10 nominations, including best picture.

But still, it wasn't the definitive slam-dunk typical of recent seasons. Following closely behind Mank were a number of equally lauded films. Judas and the Black Messiah, Nomadland, The Father, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Minari and Sound of Metal all crowded the field with six nominations each, making a definitive front-runner difficult to name. 

Still, Mank helped Netflix to lead the pack with 35 nominations overall, as the streaming service guns for its first best picture winner. Alongside Mank, it has a second shot in The Trial of the Chicago 7 — a movie Paramount Pictures sold off during the pandemic. Netflix led last year, too, with 24 nominations, but came away with just two wins. 

Best picture

• The Father
• Judas and the Black Messiah
• Mank
• Minari
• Nomadland
• Promising Young Woman
• Sound of Metal
• The Trial of the Chicago 7

And history was made in the best director category, where, for the first time, two women were nominated: Chloé Zhao for Nomadland and Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman. Only five women have ever been nominated in the category before and only one, Kathryn Bigelow, has won.

Zhao is also the first woman of Asian descent to be nominated for the award. 

Best director

• Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
• Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
• Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
• David Fincher, Mank
• Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round

Meanwhile, Canadian filmmaker Ben Proudfoot has scored an Oscar nomination for A Concerto Is a Conversation.

The documentary focuses on Horace Bowers, the grandfather of American composer Kris Bowers, and how he left his home in the Jim Crow South to eventually find success as a business owner in Los Angeles.

The film is nominated in the category of documentary short subject.

Documentary short subject

• Colette
• A Concerto Is a Conversation
• Do Not Split
• Hunger Ward
• A Love Song for Latasha

Documentary feature

• Collective 
• Crip Camp 
• The Mole Agent
• My Octopus Teacher
• Time

Among performers, it's the most diverse slate of nominees ever — and a far cry from the all-white acting nominees that spawned the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag five years ago.

Nine of the 20 acting nominees are people of colour, including a posthumous best-actor nomination for Chadwick Boseman, and nods for Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Steven Yeun (Minari), Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami), Viola Davis (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom), Andra Day (The People vs. Billie Holiday) and Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari).

Davis, who won for her performance in 2016's Fences, landed her fourth Oscar nomination, making Davis the most nominated Black actress ever.

Actress in a leading role

• Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
• Frances McDormand, Nomadland
• Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
• Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday 

Actor in a leading role

• Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
• Anthony Hopkins, The Father
• Gary Oldman, Mank
• Steven Yeun, Minari

Chadwick Boseman, the best actor front-runner, was posthumously nominated half a year after his death in August at the age of 43.

The nominations were announced from London by presenters Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The Academy Awards would typically have happened by now but this year were postponed for two months due to the pandemic. They will instead be telecast on April 25. 

Surprising Snubs

While the Oscars did make history in the director category, notably absent was Regina King for her Toronto International Film Festival smash One Night in Miami. The film did pick up three nominations — including best adapted screenplay, best supporting actor and best original song — but its Oscars exclusion was a letdown after a successful premiere at TIFF and a best director nomination at the Golden Globes.

Canadian Eli Goree, who played boxer Muhammad Ali, was also absent from the nomination list. 

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Oscar nominations this year are more diverse than they've ever been, featuring nine actors of colour and two women up for best director. But low ratings for both the Golden Globes and the Grammys have raised questions about the relevance of awards shows.

And Minari may have found itself in a six-way tie for second-most nominations, but the Academy showed no love for its eight-year-old star, Alan Kim. Despite early speculation Kim would join the short list of children nominated for the awards, the young actor was passed over for a best supporting actor nomination. 

Kim was recently nominated for a BAFTA award, and in early March made a tearful acceptance speech for the Critics Choice award for best young actor.

Actor in a supporting role

• Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
• Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah 
• Leslie Odom Jr., One Night in Miami 
• Paul Raci, Sound of Metal 
• Lakeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah

Actress in a supporting role 

• Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 
• Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy 
• Olivia Colman, The Father 
• Amanda Seyfried, Mank 
• Yuh-jung Youn, Minari 

Tom Hanks snagged his sixth Oscar nomination last year for his portrayal of Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but didn't see the same love on Monday. The actor was eligible for nominations from both News of the World and Greyhound, but was left out for both. 

Hanks has two Oscar wins to his name — consecutive best actor awards in 1994 for Philadelphia and 1995 for Forrest Gump.

Interest in little golden statuettes has taken a nosedive during the pandemic. Last month, ratings for a largely virtual Golden Globes, with acceptance speeches by Zoom, plunged to 6.9 million viewers — a 64 per cent drop from 2020.

With the notable exception of driving subscriber growth for streaming services, the pandemic has been punishing for the movie industry. Production slowed to a crawl, blockbusters were postponed or detoured to streaming and thousands of workers have been laid off or furloughed.

But the outlook for Hollywood has recently brightened as coronavirus cases have dropped and vaccination campaigns have ramped up. Movie theatres are reopening in two of the largest U.S. markets, New York and Los Angeles. And several larger movies — including Disney's Black Widow — are scheduled for May and beyond.

And in Canada, moves to reopen theatres across the country have begun, even if they are inconsistent. Ontario and Quebec allowed some theatres to resume operations in late February, though some operators said the restrictions — like not being able to sell food — meant reopening made no financial sense.

In British Columbia, movie theatres were forced to shut down in November after COVID-19 numbers resurged. They were allowed to reopen in January, but only if they operated as restaurants or bars — showing sports instead of movies on the big screen. 

Oscar nominees, continued:

Original screenplay

• Judas and the Black Messiah, Shaka King and Will Berson
• Minari, Lee Isaac Chung
• Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell
• Sound of Metal, Darius Marder and Abraham Marder
• Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin

Adapted screenplay

• Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Swimer, Peter Baynham, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Mazer, Jena Friedman and Lee Kern, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
• Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton, The Father
• Chloe Zhao, Nomadland
• Kemp Powers, One Night in Miami
• Ramin Bahrani, The White Tigers 

Animated feature film

• Onward 
• Over the Moon
• A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon 
• Soul 
• Wolfwalkers 

Original song

• Fight for You, (Judas and the Black Messiah). Music by H.E.R. and Dernst Emile II; Lyric by H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas
• Hear My Voice, (The Trial of the Chicago 7). Music by Daniel Pemberton; Lyric by Daniel Pemberton and Celeste Waite
• Húsavík, (Eurovision Song Contest). Music and Lyric by Savan Kotecha, Fat Max Gsus and Rickard Göransson
• Io Si (Seen), (The Life Ahead). Music by Diane Warren; Lyric by Diane Warren and Laura Pausini
• Speak Now, (One Night in Miami). Music and Lyric by Leslie Odom, Jr., and Sam Ashworth

Original score

• Da 5 Bloods, Terence Blanchard 
• Mank, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross 
• Minari, Emile Mosseri 
• News of the World, James Newton Howard 
• Soul, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Jon Batiste 

Animated short film

• Burrow 
• Genius Loci 
• If Anything Happens I Love You
• Opera
• Yes-People

Live-action short film

• Feeling Through
• The Letter Room
• The Present
• Two Distant Strangers 
• White Eye 

International feature film

• Another Round (Denmark) 
• Better Days (Hong Kong)
• Collective (Romania) 
• The Man Who Sold His Skin (Tunisia)
• Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 

Cinematography

• Judas and the Black Messiah
• Mank
• News of the World
• Nomadland
• The Trial of the Chicago 7

Costume design

• Alexandra Byrne, Emma
• Ann Roth, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Trish Summerville, Mank
• Bina Daigeler Mulan
• Massimo Cantini Parrini Pinocchio

Production design

• The Father
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Mank
• News of the World
• Tenet

Film editing

• The Father
• Nomadland
• Promising Young Woman
• Sound of Metal
• The Trial of the Chicago 7

Makeup and hairstyling

• Emma
• Hillbilly Elegy
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• Mank
• Pinocchio

Visual effects

• Love and Monsters
• The Midnight Sky
• Mulan
• The One and Only Ivan
• Tenet