Best and brightest: Hollywood royalty gathers for the 96th Oscars
The calendar has been shaken up this entertainment-award season, but the movie industry’s top ceremony is remaining pretty much on time … while starting an hour earlier than usual.
The 96th edition of The Oscars celebrates the best in the film as ABC televises the event Sunday, March 10, from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. The network’s late-night star, Jimmy Kimmel, will be back for his fourth turn as Oscar host. His wife, Molly McNearney, has her second consecutive year as an executive producer of the event (a job she also performs, along with co-head writer, on her spouse’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” weeknight program).
Viewers can expect Kimmel to make reference to last year’s strikes that upended show business, with the work stoppages by writers and actors delaying – or, in some cases, cancelling – the production of movies and altering release schedules. Some of this year’s Academy Award-nominated films had less promotion than they might have received otherwise, since their stars couldn’t promote those pictures as part of the union agreement during the actors’ strike.
However, a big turnout by Hollywood can be expected now, with the Oscar red-carpet arrivals of many personalities again being the draws for worldwide interest and attention that they typically are. There’s also potential for the unexpected, as recent Oscar shows have confirmed, whether that amounts to surprise winners or unanticipated comments or actions by those who take the stage. “Oppenheimer” leads the current group of nominated films with 13 bids, followed by “Poor Things” with 11, “Killers of the Flower Moon” with 10, “Barbie” with eight — and controversy over its lack of nominations for Margot Robbie as best actress and Greta Gerwig as best director — and “Maestro” with seven.
Following are the nominees in several of the categories in the 96th Oscars.
Best picture: “American Fiction”; “Anatomy of a Fall”; “Barbie”; “The Holdovers”; “Killers of the Flower Moon”; “Maestro”; “Oppenheimer”; “Past Lives”; “Poor Things”; “The Zone of Interest”
Best actor in a leading role: Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”; Colman Domingo, “Rustin”; Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”’; Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”; Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Best actress in a leading role: Annette Bening, “Nyad”; Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Sandra Huller, “Anatomy of a Fall”; Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”; Emma Stone, “Poor Things”
Best actor in a supporting role: Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”; Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”; Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”; Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”
Best actress in a supporting role: Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”; Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”; America Ferrera, “Barbie”; Jodie Foster, “Nyad”; Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”