‘Everything Everywhere’ leads Oscar nominees

Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — The time- and space-twisting sci-fi tale “Everything Everywhere All at Once” captured a leading 11 Oscar nominations, including best picture, while Steven Spielberg continued his awards season success by garnering best director and best picture nominations for “The Fabelmans,” which earned seven overall nominations.

The World War I saga “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the Irish dark comedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” each received nine nominations — including best picture for both — as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Jan. 24 announced its candidates for the Oscars, which will be handed out March 12 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The biopic “Elvis” was next with eight nominations, including best picture and best actor (Austin Butler), while “The Fabelmans” — Spielberg’s largely autobiographical movie about a young boy who dreams of becoming a filmmaker — received seven nominations, including Michelle Williams for best actress and Judd Hirsch for best supporting actor.

Cate Blanchett was tapped for best actress for her performance in “Tár,” playing a fictional composer suffering a career crisis — and helping the film garner six nominations, including best picture. The Tom Cruise action sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” also captured six nominations, among them best picture.

Rounding out the 10 best picture nominees — the only category with 10 candidates — were the James Cameron blockbuster “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Women Talking.”

The nomination for “The Fabelmans” marks Spielberg’s 12th career nomination for best picture, an Academy record for an individual producer. The nomination also ties Spielberg with William Wyler, with each having directed 13 films nominated for best picture.

In the major individual awards, also garnering best actor nominations were Colin Farrell in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” Paul Mescal in “Aftersun” and Bill Nighy in “Living.” The nominations were the first best-actor nominations for everyone in the category.

For best actress, in addition to Williams and Blanchett, nominations went to Ana de Armas in “Blonde,” Andrea Riseborough in “To Leslie,” and Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Blanchett and Williams have both been nominated for best-actress before, and Blanchett won the prize for “Blue Jasmine.” Williams was nominated in the category for “Blue Valentine” and “My Week with Marilyn.”

In the best supporting actor category, Hirsch was joined by Brendan Gleeson in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Brian Tyree Henry in “Causeway,” Barry Keoghan in “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Best supporting actress nominations went to Angela Bassett in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Hong Chau in “The Whale,” Kerry Condon in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Jamie Lee Curtis in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Stephanie Hsu in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Spielberg — who took the best director trophy as well as best drama picture for “The Fabelmans” at the recent Golden Globe Awards — was joined in the Oscar best director category by Martin McDonagh for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Todd Field for “Tár” and Ruben Ostlund for “Triangle of Sadness.” The nominations are the first directing ones for everyone in the category except Spielberg, who has been nominated eight times previously — winning for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

Among the other nominations for “The Fablemans” was an original-score nomination for John Williams, who padded his record-setting number of nominations for music scoring at 48. Overall, Williams has 53 total career Oscar nominations, the most of any living person and second only to Walt Disney, who had 59. According to the Academy, Williams is also believed to be the oldest nominee in any competitive award category at age 90.

Judd Hirsch’s nomination as best supporting actor set a record for longest time between nominations at 42 years — he was nominated for his supporting role in 1980’s “Ordinary People.” Henry Fonda previously held the record, with 41 years between nominations.

The original song nominations announced Tuesday also garnered immediate buzz, thanks to nominations for Lady Gaga and Rihanna, who collected nominations for their compositions in the films “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” respectively. But the category also got some attention for one person who was not nominated — Taylor Swift. She had been considered a likely nominee for her song “Carolina” from the film “Where the Crawdads Sing.” 

Actress Allison Williams and actor/producer Riz Ahmed hosted the nomination ceremonies, which were streamed live from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater and covered 23 categories in all.

With more theaters reopening as the pandemic has eased, the Academy this year returned its Oscar eligibility requirements to films released in theaters between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022 — and in six specific locales. Those locations are: Los Angeles County, the city of New York, the Bay Area, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta.

Comedian and talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel will return for a third hosting gig when the Oscar awards ceremonies air live on March 12 on ABC.