Monday
Jan132020
New Oscar Trivia courtesy of the fresh Oscar nominations
Monday, January 13, 2020 at 12:34PM Here are some fresh statistics to ponder given the new round of Oscar nominations. If you can think of more records broken or equalled let us know in the comments so we can add them. Refresh your screens for updates!
ALL TIME RECORDS...
- Thelma Schoonmaker, received her 8th nomination for editing The Irishman. That's an all time record but she has to share it since Michael Kahn (who, like Thelma, is three time winner in the category: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan) has also received 8 nominations in his career, most recently with Lincoln (2012) when he broke their previous tie for "most nominated".
- Little Women (2019) is now the most nominated adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's book ever filmed...
There have been many iterations of course but it doubled the previous nomination tally for adaptations. Both the 1933 and 1994 versions received three nominations each but the 1933 version is the only previous adaptation to be Best Picture nominated. It's also the first adaptation to score more than one acting nod. - Joker (2019) is now the most-nominated film ever from within the superhero genre. Previously the record was held by The Dark Knight (2008) which scored 8 nominations to Joker's 11. Black Panther holds the record for "most wins" from a superhero picture with 3. Can Joker beat it?
- Diane Warren keeps beating her own records. She's still the most nominated songwriter to never win. All previous songwriters to score this many nominations (she has 11 now) have won before.
THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
- Honeyland is the first film ever to be honored in both Best Documentary and Best International Film categories. While some films have been nominated for Best International Film AND Best Picture, this particular feat has never happened before despite plenty of films that have tried it.
- Parasite is the first Korean movie ever nominated for Best Picture AND the first Korean movie ever nominated for Best International Film (formerly called Best Foreign-Language Film)
- In the Absence is the first Korean film ever nominated for any documentary Oscar. It's in the Documentary Shorts category. So alongside Parasite it's quite a year for Korean cinema at the Oscars!
- This is the first time FOUR films (Irishman, Once Upon a Time, 1917, Joker) have achieved double-digit nominations in the same year. This means the voters were really lazy "it's the best... everything!" but it's still a first. The closest we've previously come to that level of same-same-same madness across the board was 1964 and 1977 which both had three films (Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and Becket) and (The Turning Point, Julia, and Star Wars) in the double digits of nominations.
AGAIN.
- Parasite is the fourth Asian ensemble picture to score a Best Picture nomination but as with the previous instances, The Last Emperor (1987), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) none of its actors were nominated
- Saoirse Ronan scores her fourth acting nomination by 25 putting her in second place for "fastest to four" of all time behind Jennifer Lawrence who was also 25 but a smidgeong younger when she did it with Joy (2015). (Fastest to five is currently Kate Winslet who did it by age 31)
- Best Supporting Actor is once again entirely composed of all previous winners as it was in 2012. Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Tom Hanks. (Yes, Brad Pitt is already an Oscar winner. He won for producing 12 Years a Slave)
- Scarlett Johansson and Cynthia Erivo go from 0 nominations to twice-nominated in one year. This happens fairly regularly with writer/directors but less so with actors. The last time this happened for actors was Mary J Blige (Mudbound, Supporting Actress & Song) and the time before that was Jamie Foxx with his two leading roles, one campaigned fradulently in supporting (Ray and Collateral)
- Cynthia Erivo is now the third person to receive nominations for acting and songwriting in the same year. The other two are Lady Gaga and Mary J Blige. Interestingly all three are very very recent. The only person to win in both fields was Barbra Streisand... though she didn't do it in the same year)
- Jimmo Yang, nominated for editing Parasite is only the second Asian to be nominated in that category. The first (and only other) was Kant Pan for The Crying Game (1992). Yang would be the first winner if that blessed (deserved) event came to pass.
- Hildur Gudnadottir, nominated for composing Joker, is the second Icelandic woman nominated for composing -- the first was Björk for Best Original Song. She's also the second Icelandic person nominated in Score. The only previous Icelandic nomine in score is the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who was nominated twice for The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015)
- The Lion King is now the third all-animated movie to receive a nomination in Best Visual Effects. The first two were Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Kubo and The Two Strings (2016)
RANDOMNESS
- Joe Pesci returning to a nomination after 29 years away, Al Pacino returning after 27, Hopkins after 22 years, and Hanks after 19 are not records. But we'll have a post about this soon because the list is interesting. Still, there are a lot of "throwback" contenders this year.
- Brad Pitt is the youngest Best Supporting Actor nominee and he's 56 years old. Oscar is not 'no country for old men' this year!
- Cynthia Erivo is the only person of color nominated for acting. That's not especially notable since lord knows it's happened many times before . Still we love stats so thought we'd share that this is the 12th black nominee for Best Actress. None of them have ever been nominated twice in the category. (Viola Davis would have easily been the first return nominee but opted to pretend she was "supporting" in Fences for the easy win.)
- A MILD SHOCK. Best Supporting Actress is all actually supporting actresses this year, no fraud! That's fairly rare nowadays. By contrast Supporting Actor has two leads pretending to be supporting, both within the subgenre of buddy comedy (Those are usually two lead movies, don'cha know).
- Composer John Williams scored his 52nd nomination this year. He's inching ever closer to the all time leader (Walt Disney had 56 nominations in his very long career)
- Bradley Cooper scored his 8th nomination for producing Joker. That means that only half of this movie star's Oscar tally is from acting now (the rest from producing or writing). That also puts him just ahead of another "Brad" with producing/acting Oscar love. Brad Pitt is on his 7th nomination with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It's his fourth for acting with the other three from producing.
- Laika is up for Best Animated Feature again with Missing Link, their fifth feature. They have a perfect track record now of films produced to films nominated (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo, Missing Link) but they've yet to win. The only other animation studio with a perfect track record of films produced / films nominatd that we're aware of is Cartoon Saloon with 3 films: The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and The Breadwinner)
Reader Comments (91)
I hope Missing Link wins. It's soooo heartfelt and endearing
Saoirse Ronan received 4 nominations by age 25, and the last three (2016, 2028 and 2020) were in the course of 5 years. Is this achievement a record in itself?
Greta Gerwig is the second woman to direct two films nominated for Best Picture, after Kathryn Bigelow.
Did you miss Gaga for acting and songwriting?
We can add Christian Bale (Ford v. Ferrari), Taron Egerton (Rocketman), and Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) to those who got both SAG and Golden Globe nods, but no Oscar love. Here's the complete list (I think):
1994 - John Turturro - Quiz Show
1994 - Meryl Streep - The River Wild
1994 - Robin Wright - Forrest Gump
1994 - Jamie Lee Curtis - True Lies
1995 - Anjelica Huston - The Crossing Guard
1997 - Pam Grier - Jackie Brown
1998 - Jane Horrocks - Little Voice
1999 - Jim Carrey - Man on the Moon
1999 - Cameron Diaz - Being John Malkovich
2001 - Cameron Diaz - Vanilla Sky
2001 - Hayden Christensen - Life as a House
2002 - Richard Gere - Chicago
2002 - Dennis Quaid - Far From Heaven
2003 - Evan Rachel Wood - Thirteen
2003 - Maria Bello - The Cooler
2004 - Paul Giamatti - Sideways
2005 - Russell Crowe - Cinderella Man
2005 - Ziyi Zhang - Memoirs of a Geisha
2006 - Leonardo DiCaprio - The Departed
2007 - Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl
2007 - Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
2008 - Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road
2010 - Mila Kunis - Black Swan
2011 - Leonardo DiCaprio - J. Edgar
2011 - Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin
2012 - John Hawkes - The Sessions
2012 - Helen Mirren - Hitchcock
2012 - Marion Cotillard - Rust & Bone
2012 - Nicole Kidman - The Paperboy
2013 - Tom Hanks - Captain Phillips
2013 - Daniel Bruhl - Rush
2014 - Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler
2014 - Jennifer Aniston - Cake
2015 - Michael Shannon - 99 Homes
2015 - Idris Elba - Beasts of No Nation
2015 - Helen Mirren - Trumbo
2016 - Amy Adams - Arrival
2016 - Hugh Grant - Florence Foster Jenkins
2017 - Steve Carrell - Battle of the Sexes
2017 - James Franco - The Disaster Artist
2017 - Hong Chau - Downsizing
2018 - John David Washington - BlackKklansman
2018 - Timothee Chalamet - Beautiful Boy
2018 - Emily Blunt - Mary Poppins Returns
2019 - Taron Egerton - Rocketman
2019 - Christian Bale - Ford v. Ferrari
2019 - Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers
Lady Gaga was one of the three nominated for acting and songwriting, not Barbra.
@Marcos: Jennifer Lawrence received 4 by 25 as well, all between 2010 and 2015. Plus she won one.
1977 also had three 10+ nominated films, with Star Wars, Julia, and The Turning Point.
As mentioned earlier, you missed Gaga in the singing-acting double nominations, but it’s also worth noting that Barbra remains the only person to win both awards, she was never double nominated (The Way We Were was written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bergman).
The first animated film to be nominated in Visual Effects was actually The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Last time double acting nominee was cate blanchett in 2008
And also slumdog millionaire was a asian ensemble
Pitt hasn't won, so Supporting Actor isn't all previous winners.
What about Gaga for acting and songwriting?
Cate Blanchett was also double nominated in 2007: "I'm not There" and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age". And lost both.
Two nominations for Scarlett Johnasson. What a historic moment for Asian women!
I love all this trivia!
Jonshoe: Pitt has won an Oscar - Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave.
Not a record, but the gradual ticking down of a chance at one.
Jennifer Lawrence now only has one more chance to take Kate Winslet's record as the youngest actor to receive 5 competitive acting nominations.
If 1917 wins Best Picture, it'll be the 4th Best Picture featuring Colin Firth (following The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love and The King's Speech). This will give him the record for most credited appearances in Best Pictures.
Come to think if it, Meryl Streep could pull off the same feat if Little Women wins.
Others who appeared in three include Clark Gable, Dustin Hoffman, Harry Davenport (consecutively!), Beth Grant, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, John Gielgud, Bernard Hill, Jack Nicholson, Shirley MacLaine, Morgan Freeman, John Cazale....
Among the men, Pacino moves up to a tie for third most acting behind Olivier and Nicholson. He’s tied with Paul Newman and Spencer Tracy
De Niro has his 8th nomination, his first outside of the acting categories.
Lady Gaga says hi.
Isn't Emma Tillinger Koskoff the first (female) producer with two Best Picture nominations the same year? She's certainly the first with one film that scavenges the earlier work of her other film's director.
Is Antonio Bandaras not considered a person of color?
If/when Laura Dern wins, will that be a record for longest time between first nomination and first win for acting? Paul Newman was 28 years (1958-1986), and if that’s the record, Laura Dern stands to tie it since her first nomination was 28 years ago.
Antonio Banderas is a white European from a Spanish-speaking country. Frenchman, Italians and Greeks are also white, by the way.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was also nominated for Best Visual Effects...
I just want to commend Nathaniel for all this trivia. I love it! I am also quite impressed with the lists from StephenM and Paranoid Android
"Oh, my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white"
-me today explaining to half my co-workers why Antonio Banderas does not count as a 'person of color'
Oops. Streisand did not compose The Way We Were.
The 1973 Best Song winner was composed by Marvin Hamlisch (who won three Oscar that night) with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Working stiff - Megan Ellison received two Best Picture nominations in 2013, for American Hustle and Her. (It's a pity that Annapurna is having so much trouble.)
Now that you mention it, though, Amy Pascal is one of only a handful of female producers who have received solo Best Picture nods (most of the others were in the '80s and '90s).
Here's another bit of trivia. I like looking for connections among the acting nominees every year, and this year there seem to be plenty. Here are the ones I've thought of so far:
Evita: Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce
The Mask of Zorro: Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins
Interview with the Vampire: Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas
Philadelphia: Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas
Her: Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson
The Wolf of Wall Street: Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie
Black Widow: Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Adam Driver and Laura Dern
Glengarry Glen Ross: Al Pacino and Jonathan Pryce
Titanic/Revolutionary Road: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kathy Bates
Ocean’s Thirteen: Brad Pitt and Al Pacino
Mary, Queen of Scots: Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie
The Devil’s Advocate: Al Pacino and Charlize Theron
That Thing You Do: Tom Hanks and Charlize Theron
(only because I looked it up earlier) Megan Ellison accomplished the same feat in 2013. I'm not sure if she was the first, but I'm betting it didn't happen before the expanded era. (And fun fact: producers weren't officially nominated for BP until about 1950, so couldn't have happened before then.)
Thank you shawshank!
Also to my list, add Ralph Fiennes, Jack Gwillim and Hugh Griffith.
@ Richter Scale
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Pacino
Catch Me If You Can: Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks
Another likely trivia:
How long have we had both winning films of the major film festival (La Palme D'or -Parasite- and Lione de Venezia -Joker-) as best picture nominees?
Lion King is the third animated film for SFX. Nightmare Before Xmas was also nominated.
I wonder if John Williams can take over Walt Disney. I presume no since Williams is 87 years old and his nominations are usually years apart.
To those citing Lady Gaga: the piece of trivia in question refers to performers going from 0 nominations to 2 in one year. Since Gaga had been previously nominated for "Till It Happens to You", her nomination count went from 1 to 3.
Hernanhugo: This is the first time the Palme d’Or and Golden Lion winners both got Best Picture nominations in the same year. The only previous instance of a year’s Palme d’Or and Golden Lion winners being Best Picture nominees was 1980, but their Oscar nominations came in different years: 1980’s Palme d’Or winner All That Jazz was nominated by the Academy the year prior, and 1980’s Golden Lion winner Atlantic City was nominated by the Academy the following year.
@Jonshoe, Edward L.: Yeah, I wouldn't have counted Brad Pitt as a previous winner, since he hasn't won in acting
Strong feeling that they're going to give to Diane Warren this year like they dir with Randy Newman for that song I can barely remember.
Al Pacino - 47 years between 1st and last nomination. Barely beating Alan Arkin (46) and Jeff Bridges (45) but missing Hepburns record of 48.
I think Peter o toole and Paul newman is up there to w 44.
//Tobias
Lady Gaga didn’t go from 0 to 2 , she already had a song nomination before A star Is born
I loved Richter Scale's costars post. Thank you RS!
Richter - Hopkins and Scarlett in HITCHCOCK
Every time Greta Gerwig directs a movie it gets nominated for best picture as well as actress and supporting actress.
I remember reading some trivia about the number of movies represented in the acting categories.
2007 was a major outlier—the Michael Clayton costars were the only nominees who came from the same movie.
This year feels like the opposite of that. Almost everyone has a co-star nominated. Is it all-time worst or just close to it?
The record for fewest films to produce acting nominees is 1981: 9. This year's total of 12 doesn't really come close.
@ Richter Scale
J. Edgar: Leonardo DiCaprio and Adam Driver
Legends of the Fall, Meet Joe Black: Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins
The Big Short: Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie
JF: There are 13 films with acting nominations this year. Not an all-time low (that would be 2013, which only had 10)...
JF: There are 13 films with acting nominations this year. Not an all-time low (that would be 2013, which only had 10)...
There are two separate bits of trivia that many keep conflating:
- Scarlett Johansson and Cynthia Erivo go from 0 nominations to twice-nominated in one year. This happens fairly regularly with writer/directors but less so with actors. The last time this happened for actors was Mary J Blige (Mudbound, Supporting Actress & Song) and the time before that was Jamie Foxx with his two leading roles, one campaigned fradulently in supporting (Ray and Collateral)
- Cynthia Erivo is now the third person to receive nominations for acting and songwriting in the same year. The other two are Lady Gaga and Mary J Blige. Interestingly all three are very very recent. The only person to win in both fields was Barbra Streisand... though she didn't do it in the same year)
The first bit doesn't apply to Lady Gaga, so no need to infer that. The second bit does apply to Lady Gaga, but not to Barbra Streisand. So that second point ought to be corrected accordingly.