With that said, the Best Director race is still an impressive lineup. Christopher Nolan is likely to win, but it was a pleasant relief to see Justine Triet nominated for her Palme d’Or winner, Anatomy of a Fall; Jonathan Glazer also got in for The Zone of Interest, joining Triet in not only unseating Gerwig but also Alexander Payne for The Holdovers and dark horse whispers of Bradley Cooper (Maestro).
As the morning wore on before the Best Director category was announced, some might have even speculated whether Martin Scorsese could actually miss considering how much Killers of the Flower Moon had been passed over in only a handful of minutes. While Scorsese’s Western epic received Best Picture, Director, and Leading Actress nominations, Leonardo DiCaprio noticeably went ignored in the Best Actor race, missing out to Colman Domingo (Rustin) who made a surprise and happy appearance alongside the obvious frontrunners of Cillian Murphy, Paul Giamatti, and Bradley Cooper. Additionally, it is nice to just see Jeffrey Wright nominated for this category for terrific work in American Fiction.
The Academy also raised eyebrows when they ignored Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth in the Best Adapted Screenplay category where Killers missed out in favor of Glazer’s work on The Zone of Interest, which earned some last-minute groundswell of support among Academy voters (although we predicted that). After all, The Zone of Interest, like the other foreign-language film starring Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall, was able to fight its way into the Best Picture race, and at the seeming expense of The Color Purple. The musical remake was ultimately relegated to a single acting nomination: Danielle Brooks in Best Supporting Actress.
Other surprises include John Williams picking up an unanticipated Best Original Score nod for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny—likely at the expense of Daniel Pemberton’s work on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse—and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon clocking in plenty of technical nominations. Sterling K. Brown’s American Fiction work also getting into the Best Supporting Actor race was a happy surprise as he was on the bubble. He likely beat out Willem Dafoe for Poor Things and Charles Melton for May December. The Todd Haynes movie was, in fact, almost entirely shut out beyond a single Best Original Screenplay nod.
… Also America Ferrera beat the odds set by Oscar prognosticators and got into the Best Supporting Actress category for her work in Barbie. So it seems the Academy was not cold toward Gerwig’s movie—just the woman who directed it to the cultural phenomenon and Best Picture nominee it is today.
