IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO PLAY

IN THE STRANGEST awards season ever, the Oscars are finally less than two weeks away. So here’s some trivia to help you impress your vaccinated-only guests at your Oscar-watch party. Pay attention to the questions; clues may lie within.

How’s your Oscar history knowledge? Test your smarts with our trivia quiz.

1 Who has the most career nominations among Black actresses? It would be foolish to try to fence her in. 2 Which two of this year’s best picture nominees occur at the same time, even referencing each other’s events? 3 Who holds the record for most Oscar nominations received by a woman in one year? She may find a home at the academy after this. 4 Two women are nominated as directors (Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman” and Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland”), the most in one year. In 92 previous years, only five other women were nominated. Can you name more than one? Hint: One won so didn’t need a special place to put the pain of losing.

5 What’s the only “X”rated film to win best picture? Don’t everyone shout it out at once; I don’t want everybody talkin’ at me. 6 The pandemic rendered box-office numbers all but irrelevant in 2020, but only twice in the last 50 years has the worldwide top grosser won best picture. Name either winner. Bonus: Two animated films in that time have been their year’s top grossers and won the animated feature Oscar. If you can name one, don’t hold it back anymore. 7 Billie Eilish’s James Bond movie theme “No Time to Die” became the first Grammy-winning song for visual media from an unreleased film. Two Bond themes have won the Oscar. Do you have even a specter of a chance to name them? The first was not sung by Chicken Little. 8 There are two instances in which two actors have won Oscars for playing the same role (in different movies). What two character roles earned Oscars for four separate actors? No one will laugh if you don’t get it. 9 According to Martin Scorsese and some others, superhero movies are “not cinema.” That must come as an awful shock to the three Oscar nominees who have directed Marvel Cinematic Universe films. One’s MCU debut is due this November. Who are they?

And, finally, if you get this without Googling the answer, things are really going your way: 10 LaKeith Stanfield’s nomination this year for supporting actor in “Judas and the Black Messiah” raised old questions about how voters decide what performances are lead or supporting. Decades ago, an actor was nominated in both supporting and lead categories in the same year — for the same performance. Who? What the? How?