Trivia Collection for the 96th Academy Awards
Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 8:47AM 
Here's what we came up with as the dust settles from Oscar night. Let us know in the comments if there's any other interesting trivia bits you noticed from this season.
PICTURE / DIRECTOR
• Oppenheimer is the third consecutive movie to be released before fall film festival season to win the Best Picture Oscar (after Coda and Everything Everywhere All At Once)... so perhaps distributors can learn to start trusting that movies can be released at any time and still factor into awards season? It's also the first movie to go straight to theaters (no festivals) to win Best Picture in ages (well, since The Departed in 2006)
• Three female-directed films Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, and Past Lives were nominated in Best Picture which is an all time record...
The previous record was two films which happened four times before, all in the "expanded era" first in 2009 (An Education and The Hurt Locker *which won), then in 2010 (Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right, both of which incidentally had the lowest nomination counts) and then again in 2020 (Nomadland which won and Promising Young Woman) 2021 (Power of the Dog and Coda, which happened to be the two frontrunners with the latter winning). This will happen more and more of course with the number of female directors rising exponentially from 20 years ago and with the expansion of Best Picture.
• Oppenheimer is the fifth picture to win both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor (the previous times were Going My Way, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mystic River, Dallas Buyers Club)
• Best Picture nominations for The Zone of Interest, Past Lives, and Anatomy of a Fall, make this the most "foreign" language focused lineup ever. It's an arguable record though since Past Lives and Anatomy of a Fall have significant amounts of English language but it feels like something... More proof that the Academy is more internationally minded than they once were.
• With his 10th nomination for Best Director, Martin Scorsese is now the second most-nominated director of all time just two shy of William Wyler (who received 12 nominations and 3 wins during his career). Scorsese was previously tied with Steven Spielberg for second place but now Spielberg is a solo third place. Scorsese also now holds the dubious distinction of being the only filmmaker to have more than one movie (and he has three) to score double-digit nominations that went on to lose everything. The others are Gangs of New York, and The Irishman.
ACTING
• With her fifth nod, Annette Bening has now been nominated for acting across four consecutive decades (1990s-2020s) which is not unheard of but still very impressive. She also lost two of those five races to actresses winning their second Oscars (Hilary Swank and Emma Stone). When will it be her year? Or will she have to make do with an Honorary? Meryl Streep (1970s-2010s) and Denzel Washington (1980s-2020s) currently hold the most consecutive decades with an acting nomination record with five each. Can Annette pull off a nomination in the 2030s to tie them or will Streep and Washington extend their records? ;)
...in this same vein in terms of careers being marathons rather than sprints, Robert De Niro now holds the record of the longest stretch between first nomination and last. This puts Katharine Hepburn in second place of all time Oscar longevity.
- De Niro - 49 years (The Godfather Part II to Killers of the Flower Moon)
- Hepburn -48 years (Morning Glory to On Golden Pond)
• Robert Downey Jr is the first previous regular cast member of Saturday Night Live to win an acting Oscar and the sixth to be nominated. He was in the cast for one season (1985-1986). The five other regular cast members who have been acting nominees at the Oscars: Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, Laurie Metcalf, Eddie Murphy, and Randy Quaid (the latter being the only cast member who was an Oscar-nominee before his time on the show).
• In the history of "longest gap between Oscar nods" Jodie Foster joins the ranks since 2023's Nyad proved her first nod since 1994's Nell. That's a 29 year gap which is not a record but still impressive! The longest gap between nods are (runner up) Henry Fonda with 41 years between The Grapes of Wrath (1940)and On Golden Pond (1981) and the champ, Judd Hirsch with 42 years between Ordinary People (1980) and The Fabelmans (2022).
• With his eighth nomination for acting, Robert De Niro moves up a notch in the all time most nominated male actors list, defeating Dustin Hoffman (with whom he was previously tied) to find himself in a five-way tie with a few deceased legends: Peter O'Toole, Marlon Brando, and Jack Lemmon. The only male actors with more acting nominations in the history of the Oscars are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Spencer Tracy, Paul Newman (9 each), Laurence Olivier (10), and Jack Nicholson (12).
• Colman Domingo is only the second out gay male actor to be nominated playing an out gay male character (the first was Sir Ian McKellen for Gods and Monsters, 1998) at the Oscars*. Meanwhile Sterling K Brown (American Fiction) joined a very long line of straight actors that have been nominated playing gay characters. *Some would argue that Jaye Davidson belongs here but nobody knew who he was or anything about him the season of The Crying Game.
• Lily Gladstone is the first Native American to score a nomination in any acting category. The previous indigenous acting nominees were all from outside the U.S.
CRAFT CATEGORIES
• Siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell won their second Oscars in the Best Original Song category (their first was for "No Time To Die" from No Time To Die) for Barbie's "What Was I Made For?". They're now the youngest and second youngest winner to have won two Oscars at ages 22 and 26, respectively. The previous record for youngest to win two Oscars was held by Luise Rainer who won two back-to-back Oscars in Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld (1937) and The Good Earth (1938). She was 28 at the time.
• Godzilla Minus One is the first foreign-language film to win the Best Visual Effects Oscar. It's also the first time Japanese artists have been nominated for or won in this category. The only previous Asian winner of this category is Doug Chiang, a Taiwanese-American who won for Death Becomes Her (1992).
• The Zone of Interest is the first foreign film to win the Sound Oscar.
• Documentary Feature winner 20 Days in Mariupol (2023) marks the first time a Ukrainian person or film has won any Oscar. The previous Ukrainian nominees were also both in this category: Winter on Fire (2015) and A House Made of Splinters (2022)
• Hoyte van Hoytema (Oppenheimer) who is Dutch-Swedish (though he was born in Switzerland) is the first Dutch person to be nominated for or win Best Cinematography and the third Swede to win after Sven Nykvist (Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander) and Linus Sandgren (La La Land).
• Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki is the first non-American to win the Best Animated Feature category twice, first with Spirited Away (2002) and now with The Boy and the Heron (2023). He's also the only winner EVER of this category with a hand-drawn film. Oscar voters prefer computer-animated films (sigh).
• Ben Proudfoot received his second Documentary Short win for The Last Repair Shop (his first was for The Queen of Basketball). One more win and he'll time with the all time leader Charles Guggenheim who won thrice (Robert Kennedy Remembered, The Johnston Flood, A Time for Justice between the 1960s and the 1990s)
Reader Comments (19)
Fun fact, two women also direct Best Picture nominees in 2009 (The Hurt Locker and An Education). Great article. I LOOOOOVE trivia posts like this.
I thought Judd Hirsch surpassed Henry Fonda's record last year for longest time between nominations?
I'm not so good with math early in the morning (before caffeine), but I think your Jodie math is a bit off? Doesn't 2023 minus 1994 equal 29 years?
- OPPENHEIMER is only the fourth Best Picture winner to win both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, and the first since BEN-HUR. The others were both in the 1940s: GOING MY WAY and THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.
- So far, every year ending in "3" this century has resulted in a single film winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor: MYSTIC RIVER in 2003, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB in 2013, and now OPPENHEIMER in 2023.
- This is only the second time two consecutive Best Picture winners won multiple acting Oscars; the last time was 1953/1954 with FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and ON THE WATERFRONT.
- This is the first time two consecutive Best Picture winners won exactly seven Oscars.
Two women also directed BP nominees in 2020: Nomadland amd Promising Young Woman. The only year both women in question were nominated!
I don't know if really counts and someone else probably already said it but every time Emma Stone have been nominated is for a film competing for Best Picture
Any other actor has that distinction?
In the acting category, Robert De Niro broke the record for longest gap between FIRST and last nominations. 49 years passed between his first nomination and win for The Godfather Part II and his most recent nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon. The previous record holder was Katherine Hepburn, with 48 years between her first nomination (and win) for Morning Glory and her last nomination (and win) for On Golden Pond. Hepburn continues to hold the record for longest gap between first and last wins.
James from Ames is correct that Judd Hirsch broke Henry Fonda's record for longest gap between nominations: 41 years and 341 days compared to Fonda's 41 years and 1 day.
@César Gaytán -- Yes, I believe that this century alone, the following actors received all their nominations for films that were also Best Picture-nominated: Bradley Cooper (5), Saoirse Ronan (4), Christian Bale (4), Octavia Spencer (3), Carey Mulligan (3) -- as well as Sandra Bullock, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Sam Rockwell, Jonah Hill, Christoph Waltz, Tom Wilkinson, and Mahershala Ali with two apiece. Notably, Mahershala Ali not only won for both his nominations, but also both of the films he won for also won Best Picture.
What stands out about Emma Stone's accomplishment, is that all her films were also nominated for Best Director -- something I believe only Christian Bale in the 3+ nominees above shares.
3/4 of the four movies Stone was nominated for also received double-digit nominations, with only Birdman coming short (with 9 nominations) -- which is pretty incredible. They also all won at least one Oscar.
I think the 96th Academy Awards was one of the best Oscar shows ever and Nathaniel let me know when will you be doing the April Fools 97th Academy Awards nominations predications please.
If Bening had followed my advice ten years ago and made an Ida Lupino biopic, she'd already have that Oscar. Alas, now I fear it's too late. (And the Gloria Grahame biopic was too little, too late and too under the radar.)
Robert Downey, Jr. is the first Saturday Night Live cast member to win an Oscar.
@César Gaytán @MrBaxter: Bradley Cooper has been nominated for acting in a Best Picture nominee 5 of 5 times, but he's not the first to do so. He's not even the first Cooper to do so.
Gary Cooper went 5-for-5, nominated five times (all as a lead) in five Best Picture nominees.
@David Feldman: Good observation. Downey is the first former SNL cast member to win, but Howard Shore (former music director) and Adam McKay (former writer) also have Oscars.
On the Mad TV side, Jordan Peele (former performer/writer) has an Academy Award for writing.
The Oscars were earlier than ever! I went to bed at 03:30. A true blessing.
Emma Stone becomes only the 25th actor of any gender to have won two leading acting Oscars.
thanks for the corrections and additions. I've updated the post!
Downey is the seventh former SNL cast member to be nominated. You forgot Bill Murray.
Robert Downey Jr is the first previous regular cast member of Saturday Night Live to win an acting Oscar and the sixth to be nominated.
Well, if we're going to be precise about this, he was the fourth to be nominated for acting, for 1992's Chaplin.
All Oscar nominations (acting nominees in bold) for SNL cast members, in chronological order. Years reflect the film, not the ceremony.
George Coe, De Düva: The Dove -- Live Action Short 1968
Randy Quaid, The Last Detail -- Supporting Actor 1973
Joan Cusack, Working Girl -- Supporting Actress 1988
Dan Aykroyd, Driving Miss Daisy -- Supporting Actor 1989
Robert Downey Jr, Chaplin -- Leading Actor 1992
Joan Cusack, In & Out -- Supporting Actress 1997
Michael McKean, A Mighty Wind -- Original Song 2003
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation -- Leading Actor 2003
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls -- Supporting Actor 2006
Robert Downey Jr, Tropic Thunder -- Supporting Actor 2008
Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids, Original Screenplay 2011
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird -- Supporting Actress 2017
Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer -- Supporting Actor 2023 -- WINNER
I'm less clear on the Oscar nominees who worked on SNL, but not as cast members. I mentioned Howard Shore and Adam McKay as winners above, but there's also Albert Brooks, Douglas McGrath, and Marc Shaiman.
Jodie Foster is now third on the list of Oscar longevity, with 47 years between Taxi Driver and Nyad. Easy to imagine her setting the record in a few years!
OK time for some very extra trivia, but here’s the full list of actors who have received nominations in 5 consecutive decades (it’s not just Meryl and Denzel):
- Laurence Olivier - 1930s to 1970s (Wuthering Heights to The Boys from Brazil)
- Michael Caine - 1960s to 2000s (Alfie to The Quiet Man)
- Jack Nicholson - 1960s to 2000s (Easy Rider to About Schmidt)
- Meryl Streep - 1970s to 2010s (The Deer Hunter to The Post)
- Frances McDormand - 1980s to 2020s (Mississippi Burning to Nomadland)
- Denzel Washington - 1980s to 2020s (Cry Freedom to The Tragedy of Macbeth)
Others like Hepburn (70s) and De Niro (00s) have 5, but not consecutive.