Oscar nominations serve up redemption for Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele

By Jesse Kinos-Goodin

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water leads the Oscar race this year, with the Canadian-shot monster romance landing 13 nominations, including best director and best picture. Christopher Nolan's intense World War II epic Dunkirk follows with eight, while Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won best motion picture (drama) at the Golden Globes and outstanding performance by a cast (the best picture equivalent) at the SAG Awards, is up for seven awards.

But the real story is how the Oscars seem to have responded the criticism lobbed at the Golden Globes, providing the beginnings of what could be the perfect redemption arc for writer/directors Jordan Peele and Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the critically-acclaimed films, Get Out and Lady Bird, respectively. After being snubbed in the director categories at the Globes, both Peele and Gerwig received best picture, best director and best original screenplay nominations. Get Out also landed a best actor nomination for Daniel Kaluuya, while Lady Bird scored both a best actress nom for Saoirse Ronan and best supporting actress for Laurie Metcalf.

It's as if the Oscars, which has been criticized in the past for being too white (#OscarsSoWhite) and too male (#OscarsSoMale), are trying to be the most in touch awards show. This is in the wake of the Golden Globes, which received prompt criticism after failing to nominate Gerwig or Peele for best director, a category that was dominated by white men and was immortalized by Natalie Portman, who seized on the moment to call out the "all-male nominees" in the category when she presented the award earlier this month.

While there were no director nominations for other leading female contenders, as some had hoped, including Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman) and Dee Rees (Mudbound), with these nominations, Gerwig becomes the fifth woman to be nominated for best director since the Academy Awards began in 1929. Her director nomination also ends an eight-year all-male streak. Previous nominees include Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties), Jane Campion (The Piano), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), with Bigelow being the only winner among them.

Peele's nomination is also noteworthy, with him becoming just the fifth African-American to score a best director nomination, a field that also includes John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood), Lee Daniels (Precious), Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight). No black feature narrative film directors have ever won the award.

Mudbound also marks Netflix's first time nominated for an Oscar in the feature film category, including a best supporting actress and best original song nomination for actor/singer Mary J. Blige. And while writer/director Dee Rees didn't receive a director nomination, she did land one for best adapted screenplay. It also landed a nomination for cinematographer Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first female director of photography to ever receive an Oscar nomination.

Meryl Streep is now the most nominated actress in the award's history with 21 nods, the most recent being a best actress nomination for her turn as Katherine Graham in The Post, which is also up for best picture.

Canadian nominees include Christopher Plummer for best supporting actor, who filled in at the last minute when Kevin Spacey was ousted from Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World following sexual misconduct allegations; Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 received nominations in many technical categories, including cinematography, effects and sound; and the animated film The Breadwinner, a Canadian co-production based on the novel by Deborah Ellis, is up for best animated feature.    

See below for the full list of nominees.

Best Picture
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Director
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro, Shape of Water

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Adapted Screenplay
James Ivory, Call Me by Your Name
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Disaster Artist
Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green, Logan
Aaron Sorkin, Molly's Game
Virgil Williams and Dee Rees, Mudbound

Best Original Screenplay
Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Animated Feature Film
The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent

Best Foreign Language Film
A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
The Insult (Lebanon)
Loveless (Russia)
Body and Soul (Hungary)
The Square (Sweden)

Best Documentary Feature
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces/Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island

Best Cinematography
Roger A. Deakins, Blade Runner: 2049
Bruno Delbonnel, Darkest Hour
Hoyte van Hoytema, Dunkirk
Rachel Morrison, Mudbound
Dan Laustsen, The Shape of Water

Film Editing
Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos, Baby Driver
Lee Smith, Dunkirk
Tatiana S. Riegel, I, Tonya
Sidney Wolinsky, The Shape of Water
Jon Gregory, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Production Design
Beauty and the Beast (Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer)
Blade Runner: 2049 (Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Alessandra Querzola)
Darkest Hour (Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer)
Dunkirk (Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis)
The Shape of Water (Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin)

Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran, Beauty and the Beast
Jacqueline Durran, Darkest Hour
Mark Bridges, Phantom Thread
Luis Sequeira, The Shape of Water
Consolota Boyle, Victoria & Abdul

Makeup and Hairstyling
Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick, Darkest Hour
Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard, Victoria & Abdul
Arjen Tuiten, Wonder

Original Score
Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk
Jonny Greenwood, Phantom Thread
Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water
John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Carter Burwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Original Song
"Mighty River," Mudbound
"Mystery of Love," Call Me by Your Name
"Remember Me," Coco
"Stand Up for Something," Marshall
"This Is Me," The Greatest Showman

Sound Editing
Julian Slater, Baby Driver
Mark Mangini and Theo Green, Blade Runner 2049
Richard King and Alex Gibson, Dunkirk
Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira, The Shape of Water
Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Sound Mixing
Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin, and Mary H. Ellis, Baby Driver
Ron Bartlett, Dough Hemphill, and Mac Ruth, Blade Runner 2049
Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landarker, and Gary A. Rizzo, Dunkirk
Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern, and Glen Gauthier, The Shape of Water
David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Stuart Wilson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Visual Effects
Blade Runner 2049 (John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert, and Richard R. Hoover)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, and Dan Sudick)
Kong: Skull Island (Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, and Mike Meinardus)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan, and Chris Corbould)
War for the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist)

Animated Short Film
Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes

Live Action Short Film
DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmett
The Silent Child
Watu Wote: All of Us

Documentary Short Subject
Edith and Eddie
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop