The Oscars Are Trying

The nominations for the 2018 Oscars are out, and honestly, the Academy did better than I expected.

This year saw a historic nomination: Rachel Morrison, the director of photography for Mudbound, became the first woman ever to be nominated for Best Cinematography in the 90 year history of the awards—which is both amazing and insane. (We’re still doing firsts?!)

Also, breakout directors Jordan Peele (Get Out) and Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) finally got their due. They were both nominated for the Best Director Oscar and their respective movies were also nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay—a huge honor for two debut films. Both also made history in other ways; Gerwig is just the fifth woman to be nominated for a Best Director award, and Peele is just the fifth black person to be nominated.

The Big Sick was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay; co-writer and star Kumail Nanjiani is the second person of Pakistani descent to have been nominated for the award.

Unfortunately Dee Rees was snubbed for the Best Director award (I guess they could only let one woman in this year?), but her film Mudbound did get substantial Oscars attention. Rees was nominated along with Virgil Williams for Best Adapted Screenplay—the first black woman to ever get the nod in that category. And even more amazingly, Mary J. Blige scored two nominations in one morning—for both Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song (for Mudbound’s “Mighty River”).

Blige is the first person in history to be nominated for an acting Oscar in a movie directed by a woman of color.

While James Franco (The Disaster Artist) was snubbed—a relief in light of the allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct against him—the Oscars also snubbed Tiffany Haddish, a fan and critic favorite for Best Supporting Actress for Girls Trip. (And Gary Oldman, who has abuse allegations of his own, seems likely to win for his role in Darkest Hour.)

Last year gave us the most diverse Oscar nominations in just over a decade, and while this year did not hit the same marks (the Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress nominations are all white!!!), the recognition of talent of color has maintained steam. Having said that, the Oscars aren’t exactly a diversity utopia. Kumail Nanjiani may now be Oscar-nominated, and Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s Shape of Water may have led the pack with 13 nominations, but the Oscars still fall short of celebrating non-black people of color. Coco was a brilliant and beautiful story of a Mexican boy and featured a cast of Latinx actors, but its Best Animated Feature nod goes to director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson, both of whom are white. (Coco did also score a nod for Best Original Song, and one of the songwriters, Robert Lopez, is of Filipino descent.)

It appears as though the Academy’s recent push for diversity has already started to see some shifts, however. Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences added 774 new members, bringing the amount of people of color in the academy from 8% to 13%. While it’s not a huge change, there’s hope that the Oscars are moving towards lasting representation.

Here’s 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

Leading Actor:

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.

Leading Actress:

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

Supporting Actor:

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 Supporting Actress:

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

Director:

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

Animated Feature:

The Boss Baby, Tom McGrath, Ramsey Ann Naito
The Breadwinner, Nora Twomey, Anthony Leo
Coco, Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson
Ferdinand, Carlos Saldanha
Loving Vincent, Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Sean Bobbitt, Ivan Mactaggart, Hugh Welchman

Animated Short:

Dear Basketball, Glen Keane, Kobe Bryant
Garden Party, Victor Caire, Gabriel Grapperon
Lou, Dave Mullins, Dana Murray
Negative Space, Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata
Revolting Rhymes, Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer

Adapted Screenplay:

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

Original Screenplay:

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

Cinematography:

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

Documentary Feature:

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Steve James, Mark Mitten, Julie Goldman
Faces Places, JR, Agnès Varda, Rosalie Varda
Icarus, Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan
Last Men in Aleppo, Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed, Soren Steen Jepersen
Strong Island, Yance Ford, Joslyn Barnes

Documentary Short Subject:

Edith+Eddie, Laura Checkoway, Thomas Lee Wright
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405, Frank Stiefel
Heroin(e), Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Kerrin Sheldon
Knife Skills, Thomas Lennon
Traffic Stop, Kate Davis, David Heilbroner

Live Action Short Film:

DeKalb Elementary, Reed Van Dyk
The Eleven O’Clock, Derin Seale, Josh Lawson
My Nephew Emmett, Kevin Wilson, Jr.
The Silent Child, Chris Overton, Rachel Shenton
Watu Wote/All of Us, Katja Benrath, Tobias Rosen

Foreign Language Film:

A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
The Insult (Lebanon)
Loveless (Russia)
On Body and Soul (Hungary)
The Square (Sweden)

Film Editing:

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

Sound Editing:

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

Sound Mixing:

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

Production Design:

Beauty and the Beast, Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer
Blade Runner 2049, Dennis Gassner, Alessandra Querzola
Darkest Hour, Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
Dunkirk, Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
The Shape of Water, Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau

Original Score:

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

Original Song:

“Mighty River” from Mudbound, Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq, Taura Stinson
“Mystery of Love” from Call Me by Your Name, Sufjan Stevens
“Remember Me” from Coco, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
“Stand Up for Something” from Marshall, Diane Warren, Common
“This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul

Makeup and Hair:

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

Costume Design:

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

Visual Effects:

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