This year’s Oscar nominations dropped this morning and, as always, there is controversy around them. From snubs like the entire cast of Passing and Lin-Manuel Miranda not getting a Best Director nom for tick, tick…BOOM! to surprise nominations like Drive My Car for Best Picture, the nominations for 2022 are a bit all over the place in ways both good and bad.
One being the fact that the Best Actress category is, once again, filled with white nominees when Ruth Negga in Passing was right there and worthy of at least a nomination, if not the win. And this has been a problem for many reasons, one being that the Oscars awarded Halle Berry 20 years ago and that is the last and only time a Black actress has taken home the Best Actress award.
The Hollywood Reporter listed the entire nominee list, which includes nominations for Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza and recognition for Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, but let’s get into the snubs and the surprises from this year’s nominees.
Snubs
First of all, the first set of snubs comes from the Rebecca Hall film Passing. Based on the Nella Larsen novel of the same name, it was Rebecca Hall’s feature directorial debut and was a look into colorism and what it means to pass as “white.” Both Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga brought incredible performances to the film, and their lack of award recognition is incredibly telling. The Academy left Passing out of the awards completely.
Then, there’s Robin de Jesús from tick, tick…BOOM! who played Jonathan Larson’s fictional best friend, Michael. In that same breath, there’s also a snub for Lin-Manuel Miranda as director for the film, as well. tick, tick…BOOM! did get an Oscar nomination for Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson, as well as for editing, but it was snubbed for de Jesús, Miranda, and Best Picture.
Surprises
Drive My Car getting nominated for Best Picture and making history as the first Japanese film to do so was a surprise and a welcome one at that. The film has been getting buzz since its release, and to see the Academy recognize it for Best Picture is pretty amazing.
There were also nominations for Jesse Plemons as well as Kirsten Dunst for The Power of the Dog, and luckily, Denzel Washington was nominated for his work in The Tragedy of Macbeth, which was a welcome surprise given his BAFTA snub.
A surprise to me was the recognition for Nightmare Alley in the Best Picture category. Personally, I loved the latest film from Guillermo del Toro and wish it would have gotten more attention, but seeing it at least recognized here was a fun surprise.
What the nominations mean
While the Oscars continued their trend of nominating primarily white creatives, the awards could still manage to shock us as they did in the 2020 season prior to the pandemic with historic wins for both Bong Joon-Ho and Taika Waititi. But then again, in 2021, we watched as they awarded Sir Anthony Hopkins over Chadwick Boseman’s final brilliant performance and knew that they were wrong to do so.
Will this year be any different?
(image: Netflix/Apple TV+)
