"Better Man" Leads the AACTA Nominations
Thursday, December 19, 2024 at 9:00PM
Travis C in AACTA, Best Casting, Better Man, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller, Jenny Beavan, Jonno Davies, Kate Mulvany, Late Night with the Devil, Memoir of a Snail, biopics, voice work

by Travis Cragg

Robbie Williams v. Furiosa v. Beloved Aussie Christmas Song v. Demon Possession. That’s the general gist of this year’s Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) film nominations. The satirical musical bio-pic Better Man achieved the most nominations (16), but Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and How To Make Gravy (15 each) and Late Night With The Devil (14) are not that far behind. The nomination total for Better Man is a record breaker, so the fact that three other films are very close to its indicates that the number of films that managed any nominations this year is low. There’s also a more significant artistic precedent that has been set this year amongst the acting nominees which we'll discus.

The list of nominations and comments after the jump…

 

Best Film

 

Rounding out the Film category is the Adam Elliot stop-motion film Memoir of a Snail in strong contention for a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination next year, and Runt, a family shaggy dog story (11 and 4 nominations respectively). Quite a range of genres covered there, don’t you think?

 

Best Indie Film

 

None of these films got any other nominations elsewhere. They also didn't get a high-profile release in Australian cinemas, so it’s hard to read where the category will go this year.

 


 

Best Direction in Film

 

Better Man is released in Australia right in the middle of the voting period so, if the members get out to the cinema between Christmas and New Year instead of to the beach, it might end up being the sweeper for wins, including right here. If not, AACTA holds an immense amount of respect for Miller and his internationally famous Mad Max franchise.

 

Best Lead Actor in Film

 

With Davies’ CGI ape performance as Robbie Williams and three high-profile acting nominations for Memoir Of A Snail, the other ground-breaking record from this year’s list is the largest number of stop motion or voice acting nominations for AACTA (maybe even for any film awards around the world). If AACTA were feeling sentimental, they would give it to Pearce on his sixth AACTA/Australian Film Institute (AFI) film acting nomination. But AACTA voters don't tend to be sentimental, particularly if you’re the sole nominee from your film, and so it is probably between the four guys  who are in  Best Picture nominees.

 

Best Lead Actress in Film

 

Probably a race between Snook and Taylor-Joy, with Snook having the home nationality advantage and Taylor-Joy having the advantage of being visible onscreen.

 

Best Supporting Actor in Film

Past AACTA winner (for Judy and Punch) Herriman has the double-nomination advantage, but if they are in scenery-chewing mode, they may vote for the biggest name in the list: Chris Hemsworth.

 

Ingrid Torelli in "Late Night with the Devil"

Best Supporting Actress in Film

In this category, Mulvany’s double-nomination probably makes her the slight favourite (though in which film I am not quite sure). She has been previously nominated for The Merger (in lead) and The Little Death (in supporting). Maybe Weaver, if it turns out to be Memoir’s evening.

 

Best Screenplay in Film

 

Miller has won the AACTA/AFI for directing twice (Mad Max 2, Mad Max: Fury Road) but never for writing. This is his fourth nomination in the screenplay category (after Mad Max, Mad Max: Fury Road and Three Thousand Years Of Longing)

 

Best Cinematography in Film

 

This is Commis’ sixth nomination with no wins, and the eerie nature of the Dandenong Ranges were captured beautifully on film, so maybe this might be one place where they stray from the Picture nominees and hand an award to The Dry’s sequel.

FURIOSA - costumes by Jenny Beavan (who won the Oscar for Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

Best Costume Design in Film

 

Beavan is a three-time Osar winner without an AACTA award. Ireland is a three-time AACTA/AFI winner, most recently for Lion. It’s probably between those two for the win.

 

Best Editing in Film

 

I’d imagine that those paying attention would feel that the stop-motion animation would be the trickiest to edit? Anyway, Murphy is a four-time nominee, going all the way back to Romper Stomper in 1992. This list has two Oscar winners in the mix - Smith (Dunkirk) and Sixel (Mad Max: Fury Road).

 

Best Production Design in Film

 

They probably won’t be able to go past Furiosa in this category.

 

Best Original Score in Film

 

Holkenborg aka Junkie XL aka Miller’s regular composer may have the slight edge here.

 

Best Sound in Film

 

How’s that sense of déjà vu going? Records about number of nominations don't feel like a big deal when the span of movies covered by the nominations is so small.

 

Best Casting in Film

 

Barrett is such a regular at AACTA, and in internationally renowned films like Elvis as well. Could she be amongst the first batch of nominees in this category at the 2026 Oscars?

 

Best Short Film

 

Best Documentary

 

The two music docos, Midnight Oil and The Musical Mind have the most nominations (three each).

Best Cinematography in a Documentary

 

Best Editing in a Documentary

 

 

Original Score in a Documentary

 

Best Sound in a Documentary

 

Best Hair and Makeup

 

Best Visual Effects or Animation

 

This category includes international films where the visual effects were done in Australia. Curious that Transformers One gets a nod for its animation, but Memoir Of A Snail doesn’t.

 

Best Original Song

 

Best Soundtrack

 

From memory, these last two categories are new to AACTA this year.

 

AACTA Longford Lyell Award – Working Dog 

 

The team behind iconic Australian films (The Castle, The Dish) and television (Frontline, Utopia) will receive the honorary award this year.

 

The winners of the 2025 AACTA Awards will be announced across two ceremonies - the AACTA Awards Industry Gala will be held on Wednesday February 5th and the AACTA Award Ceremony will be held on Friday February 7th.

 

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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