Broadway Stages Congratulates Academy Award Nominees

The 2022 Academy Award nominees have been announced and there is a lot to talk about. We begin with Jane Campion’s dark western “The Power of the Dog” that leads this year’s Oscars race with 12 nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and four acting nods. Star Benedict Cumberbatch will compete against some industry heavyweights for Best Actor while Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee will fight it out in the supporting categories. Campion is now the first woman to be nominated for Best Director twice, and if she wins, she will be the third female honoree in the ceremony’s 94-year history. She earned her first nomination for 1993’s “The Piano,” losing out to Steven Spielberg for “Schindler’s List.”

Speaking of Spielberg, his New York-set “West Side Story,” earned seven nominations including Best Picture, Director, and an acting nomination for Ariana DeBose in the supporting role of Anita. Her co-star Rita Moreno won in this category for the same role in the 1961 film version of the popular Broadway musical. Spielberg has already won Best Director twice, most recently for 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan.”

Denis Villeneuve’s visual stunner “Dune” garnered 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Score. Villeneuve surprisingly did not get a nod as director, but the sci-fi epic earned nominations in all seven technical categories: Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Visual Effects, Sound, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hair Styling.

Kenneth Branagh’s coming-of-age film “Belfast,” inspired by his upbringing in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, earned seven nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, who play the grandparents of 9-year-old protagonist Buddy, will vie for statuettes in the supporting acting fields.

Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard,” a biopic of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams and their father Richard, is up for six awards including Best Picture and Original Screenplay. Will Smith is the Best Actor frontrunner, but he faces stiff competition from Denzel Washington, who earned his 10th nomination for his turn in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” Smith’s co-star Aunjanue Ellis, who plays the girls’ mother, will compete against Dunst, DeBose, Dench, and Jessie Buckley (“The Lost Daughter”) in the stacked Supporting Actress category. Beyoncé, whose tune “Be Alive” plays during the closing credits of the film, earned her first nomination for Best Original Song.

International features also fared well this year. Japanese critical darling “Drive My Car” leads the pack with four nominations: Best Picture, Director (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi), Adapted Screenplay, and International Feature. It is the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture. The only foreign-language film to win the top prize was South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” released in 2019.

Pedro Almodóvar’s Spanish-language film “Parallel Mothers” also earned multiple nominations, with a nod for Best Score and a shot for Penélope Cruz to win her second Oscar. She previously won Best Supporting Actress for 2008’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” but this time she is nominated as the lead. Spain’s selection committee stunned industry insiders when it chose not to submit the film for consideration in the International Feature category.

Denmark’s animated docudrama “Flee” is up for three awards: Best Documentary (Feature), Animated Feature, and International Feature.

Yet another international film garnering multiple nominations is Norway’s “The Worst Person in the World,” which is up for Best Original Screenplay and International Feature.

Rounding out the Best Picture field are the films “CODA,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Licorice Pizza,” and “Nightmare Alley,” which each earned nominations in three or more categories. You can find a full list of all nominees here. Congratulations to all the nominees, and tune in to ABC on Sunday, March 27 to see who wins.