Eight best picture nominations emerged on Tuesday morning: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, Vice, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma and A Star Is Born. They are comedic and dramatic, based on real events and conjured from the pages of comics, in color and in black and white.
If you wanted to take the nominations as a whole as a sign of the exciting year that 2018 was, you might focus on the best actress nomination for Yalitza Aparicio, the first-time actress who anchors Alfonso Cuaron’s beautiful Roma, a black-and-white subtitled film widely available on Netflix. You might focus on the seven nominations for Black Panther, the best director nomination for Paweł Pawlikowski for Poland’s Cold War, or the fact that both of the most-nominated films with ten nods apiece, Roma and The Favourite, are stories of women not oriented around their relationships to men. You might thrill to the best-animated feature nomination for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, which reimagined the superhero film — narratively, visually and culturally.
On the other hand, if you wanted to see those nominations through the lens of their considerable disappointments, you might note the lack of best picture or best director nominations for Barry Jenkins’ beautiful and unforgettable If Beale Street Could Talk; the failure to nominate Ryan Coogler, one of Hollywood’s best rising directors, for the triumph of Black Panther; the failure to nominate any women directors at all again and very few women screenwriters again; or the complete shutout of spectacular achievements like Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade and Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace. It would have been lovely to see a nod for Michelle Yeoh for Crazy Rich Asians in a year in which the film was such a powerful force.
There are always delights and there is always dismay. It’s lovely to see Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant nominated for their work in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and to see the script from Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty nominated. But where is the director, Marielle Heller? Where is the film’s best picture nomination? It’s thrilling to see Free Solo, an exciting and unconventional rock-climbing documentary, nominated for best documentary feature. But nothing for Won’t You Be My Neighbor, a fine film that also resonated beautifully with audiences?
The eye of the beholder is a tricky thing.
Nominations rarely come as a big surprise. There were some genuine upsets (or reverse upsets) on this day, like the lack of a best director nomination for Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born, despite the film’s best picture nomination and nominations for acting, cinematography, original song, sound mixing and adapted screenplay. There was not even a nomination for Justin Hurwitz’s original score for First Man, which just won the Golden Globe. But for the most part, it went as expected: big hauls for Adam McKay’s Vice (eight nominations), Black Panther (seven nominations), Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (six nominations), and Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book — the two recent Golden Globe best film winners in drama and comedy respectively — with five.
Now and again, the Oscars are legitimately exciting. It may take a misread best picture envelope to make it so, but it does happen. Whether it happened on Tuesday morning may depend on just how many advances and retreats in a given year you have come to expect from the Academy.
Updated 10:15 a.m. ET
This year’s Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday morning. Below is the complete list.
Best picture
BlacKkKlansman
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice
Directing
Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)
Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War)
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite)
Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Adam McKay (Vice)
Actress in a leading role
Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)
Glenn Close (The Wife)
Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)
Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Actor in a leading role
Christian Bale (Vice)
Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)
Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate)
Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)
Actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams (Vice)
Marina de Tavira (Roma)
Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)
Actor in a supporting role
Mahershala Ali (Green Book)
Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)
Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born)
Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Sam Rockwell (Vice)
Animated feature film
Incredibles 2
Isle Of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks The Internet
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
Cinematography
Cold War
The Favourite
Never Look Away
Roma
A Star Is Born
Costume design
The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
The Favourite
Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen Of Scots
Documentary (feature)
Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding The Gap
Of Fathers And Sons
RBG
Documentary (short subject)
Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
A Night At The Garden
Period. End of Sentence.
Film editing
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Vice
Foreign language film
Capernaum (Lebanon)
Cold War (Poland)
Never Look Away (Germany)
Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)
Makeup and hairstyling
Border
Mary Queen Of Scots
Vice
Music (original score)
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns
Music (original song)
“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)
“All The Stars” (Black Panther)
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” (Mary Poppins Returns)
“I’ll Fight” (RBG)
“Shallow” (A Star Is Born)
Production design
Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma
Short film (animated)
Animal Behaviour
Bao
Late Afternoon
One Small Step
Weekends
Short film (live action)
Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Mother
Skin
Sound editing
First Man
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
A Quiet Place
Roma
Sound mixing
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
A Star Is Born
Visual effects
Avengers: Infinity War
Christopher Robin
First Man
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Writing (adapted screenplay)
The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star Is Born
Writing (original screenplay)
The Favourite
First Reformed
Green Book
Roma
Vice
