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)