‘Sinners’ makes history, setting Oscars nomination record

Ryan Coogler’s blues-steeped vampire epic “Sinners” led all films with 16 nominations to the 98th Academy Awards on Thursday, setting a record for the most in Oscar history. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters showered “Sinners” with more nominations than they had ever bestowed before, breaking the 14-nomination mark set by “All About Eve,” “Titanic” and “La La Land.” Along with best picture, Coogler was nominated for best director and best screenplay, and double-duty star Michael B. Jordan was rewarded with his first Oscar nomination, for best actor.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s father-daughter revolutionary saga “One Battle After Another,” the favourite coming into nominations, trailed in second with 13 of its own. Four of its actors — Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn — were nominated, though newcomer Chase Infiniti was left out in best actress. In those two top nominees, the film academy put its full force behind a pair of visceral and bracingly original American epics that each connected with a fraught national moment. Coogler’s Jim Crow-era film — the rare horror movie to win the academy’s favour — conjures a mythical allegory of Black life. In “One Battle After Another,” a dormant spirit of rebellion is revived in an out-of-control police state.

For Coogler, the 39-year-old filmmaker of “Fruitvale Station” and “Black Panther,” it was a crowning moment. One of Hollywood’s most esteemed yet humble filmmakers, Coogler has called “Sinners” — a film that he will own outright 25 years after its release — his most personal movie. The 10 films nominated for best picture are “Bugonia,” “F1,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners” and “Train Dreams.”

Guillermo del Toro’s lush Mary Shelley adaptation “Frankenstein,” Josh Safdie’s period ping-pong odyssey “Marty Supreme” and Joachim Trier’s family drama “Sentimental Value” all scored nine nominations. Chloé Zhao’s speculative Shakespeare drama “Hamnet” collected eight nods. With the notable exception of del Toro, those filmmakers filled up a best director category of Anderson, Coogler, Safdie, Trier and Zhao, who in 2021 became the first woman of colour to ever win the award.

The nine nods for “Marty Supreme” included a third best actor nod for 30-year-old Timothée Chalamet, the favorite in the category he narrowly missed winning last year for “A Complete Unknown.” With Jordan and Chalamet, the nominees are Ethan Hawke for “Blue Moon,” Wagner Moura for “The Secret Agent” and DiCaprio for “One Battle After Another.”

Nominated for best actress was the category favourite, Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”), along with Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”) and two-time winner Emma Stone, who landed her seventh nomination, for “Bugonia.”

The year’s most-watched movie, with more than half a billion views on Netflix, “KPop Demon Hunters,” scored nominations for both best song (“Golden”) and best animated feature.

Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good” was shut out entirely. While “Avatar: Fire and Ash” notched nominations for costume design and visual effects, it became the first “Avatar” film not nominated for best picture. The biggest box-office hit nominated for Hollywood’s top award instead was “F1,” an Apple production that landed four nominations.

This year, the Oscars are introducing a new category for casting. The added award helped “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” pad their already impressive stats. Along with those two films, the nominees are “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme” and “The Secret Agent.”

The academy, which has expanded its overseas membership in recent years, also continued its tilt toward international films. Every category included one international nominee. For the eighth year in the row, a non-English-language film was nominated for best picture. More non-English performances were nominated than ever before.

The top nominee of them all was Trier’s Norwegian drama “Sentimental Value.” It cleaned up in the supporting actor categories, with nods for Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter LilIeaas and Elle Fanning. Also nominated for best supporting actress, in addition to Taylor: Amy Madigan for “Weapons” and Wunmi Mosaku for “Sinners.”

Associated Press