Traditional ‘Mank’ tops rare Oscar line-up
NEW YORK — After a pandemic year that shuttered theaters and upended the movie business, Academy Awards nominations Monday went to two female filmmakers for the first time, to a historically diverse slate of actors and to David Fincher’s lead-nominee “Mank,” a traditional kind of Oscar contender — an old Hollywood homage — in a very untraditional year.
Fincher’s “Mank,” a blackand-white, period drama about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, easily topped nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards — delayed two months by the coronavirus pandemic — with 10 nominations, including best picture; best director; acting nods for Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried; and a host of others for its lavish craft.
Nominations are spread among a wide variety of contenders. Six films, all of them also up for best picture, scored six nods: “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Nomadland,” “Minari,” “Sound of Metal,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “The Father.” Also nominated for best picture is Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman.”
History was made in the best-director category. Only five women have ever been nominated before; for the first time, two are this year. Chloe Zhao got a nod for her elegiac road-trip drama “Nomadland,” alongside first-time feature filmmaker Fennell for her pitch black #MeToo revenge comedy. “Never going to stop crying,” Fennell, also nominated for best screenplay, said on Twitter.
Zhao, the first woman of color nominated for best director, is the most-nominated woman in a single year in Oscar history. She is also tipped for the film’s adapted screenplay, editing and as a producer in the best-picture category. The other directing nominees are Lee Isaac Chung for the tender family drama “Minari,” Fincher for “Mank” and Thomas Vinterberg for his heavy-drinking Danish tragicomedy “Another Round.”
For performers, it’s the most diverse group of nominees ever. Nine of the 20 acting nominees are people of color, including a posthumous best-actor nomination for Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), as well as nods for Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Steven Yeun (“Minari”), Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) and Andra Day (“The People vs. Billie Holiday”), and supporting nominations for Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield (“Judas and the Black Messiah”), Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) and Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”).
“We have to recognize how hard these people have worked,” said Day, nominated for her performance as Billie Holiday. “We have to recognize their talent.”
“When you hear your own name, it’s a weird feeling,” said Ahmed, the first Muslim nominated for best actor. “I just quietly gave thanks and felt some gratitude.”
Davis, who won for her performance in 2016’s “Fences,” landed her fourth Oscar nomination, making her the most-nominated Black actress ever. Yeun is the first Asian American ever nominated for best actor. “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Shaka King’s powerful Black Panther drama, is the first best-picture nominee with an all-Black producing team (King along with Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King). Overall, a record 70 women are nominated for 76 Oscars, the academy said.
The other nominees for best actress are: Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”); Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”); Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”). The remaining nominee for best actor is Anthony Hopkins for the dementia drama “The Father.”
With moviegoing nearly snuffed out by the coronavirus, the best-picture nominees had hardly any box office to speak of: $14.1 million in U.S. and Canada ticket sales. For the first time, Hollywood’s biggest and most sough-after awards belong to movies that were almost entirely seen at home.
“We learned a lot of hard lessons last year, but a nice one was that people will find a way to go to the movies, even if they can only go as far as their living rooms,” said Aaron Sorkin, writer-director of “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” in a statement.
Netflix, as expected, leads all studios with 35 nominations. It’s still hunting its first best-picture winner, and this year has two shots in “Mank” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” — a movie Paramount Pictures sold off during the pandemic.
Amazon Studios is well represented with “Sound of Metal,” “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and “One Night in Miami” — leading to 12 nominations overall. Both Apple TV+ (“Wolfwalkers” and “Greyhound”) and Disney+ (“Soul” and “Onward”) landed their first nominations.
The film that tried to lead a box-office revival — Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” — earned nominations for production design and visual effects.