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 Cuarón'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 10 nods apiece, Romaand 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 female directors at all again and very few female screenwriters again; or the complete shutout of spectacular achievements like Bo Burnham's Eighth Gradeand 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
Łukasz Żal (Cold War)
Robbie Ryan (The Favourite)
Caleb Deschanel (Never Look Away)
Alfonso Cuarón(Roma)
Matthew Libatique (A Star Is Born)
Costume design
Mary Zophres (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)
Ruth Carter (Black Panther)
Sandy Powell (The Favourite)
Sandy Powell (Mary Poppins Returns)
Alexandra Byrne (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
Göran Lundström and Pamela Goldammer(Border)
Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher, and Jessica Brooks (Mary Queen Of Scots)
Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe, and Patricia DeHaney (Vice)
Music (original score)
Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther)
Terence Blanchard(BlacKkKlansman)
Nicholas Britell (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Alexandre Desplat(Isle of Dogs)
Marc Shaiman (Mary Poppins Returns)
Music (original song)
"When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings" by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)
"All The Stars" by Mark Spears (aka Sounwave), Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and Anthony Tiffith, Anthony Tiffith and Solana Rowe (aka SZA) (Black Panther)
"The Place Where Lost Things Go" by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Mary Poppins Returns)
"I'll Fight" by Diane Warren (RBG)
"Shallow" by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt (A Star Is Born)
Production design
Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart (Black Panther)
Fiona Crombie and Alice Felton (The Favourite)
Nathan Crowley and Kathy Lucas (First Man)
John Myhre and Gordon Sim (Mary Poppins Returns)
Eugenio Caballero and Bárbara Enríquez (Roma)
Short film (animated)
Animal Behaviour
Bao
Late Afternoon
One Small Step
Weekends
Short film (live action)
Detainment
Fauve
Marguerite
Mother
Skin
Sound editing
Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan (First Man)
Benjamin Burtt and Steve Boeddeker (Black Panther)
John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone (Bohemian Rhapsody)
Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl (A Quiet Place)
Sergio Díaz and Skip Lievsay (Roma)
Sound mixing
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
A Star Is Born
Visual effects
Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl and Daniel Sudick(Avengers: Infinity War)
Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones and Chris Corbould (Christopher Robin)
Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J.D. Schwalm (First Man)
Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew Butler and David Shirk (Ready Player One)
Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Dominic Tuohy (Solo: A Star Wars Story)
Writing (adapted screenplay)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)
Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)
Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Barry Jenkins (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Eric Roth and Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters (A Star Is Born)
Writing (original screenplay)
Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (The Favourite)
Paul Schrader (First Reformed)
Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly (Green Book)
Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Adam McKay (Vice)
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