POWER RANKING - The Many Faces of "Death on the Nile"

By Christopher James

Which member of the "Death on the Nile" is capable of murder? Only Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) can crack the case.

Who doesn’t love a good murder mystery? Kenneth Branagh returns to fill the shoes (and moustache) of the legendary Agatha Christie character Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile, which opened in theaters this past weekend. Branagh’s stern detective finds himself aboard a glorious ship, S.S. Karnak, chartered to celebrate the nuptials of Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) and Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer). Their event is marred by death, and everyone is a suspect.

A murder mystery is only as good as its suspects, and Death on the Nile is bursting with persons celebrities of interest. So which suspects turned up the heat, and which others floundered about? Read for our power rankings of the cast (some spoilers ahead)...

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Best Director - "How'd They Get Nominated?"

The Best Director Oscar chart is fully revamped with a poll, lots of stats, trivia, and information. If we fused all five directors into one Mecha-Director we'd have a 59 year-old 5'9" Sagittarian living in California who has New Zealand, Irish, and Japanese roots. This fictional Mecha-Director has made 15 movies and been nominated in this category 3 times.

The chart also contains our annual thought experiment: "How'd they get nominated?"...

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New Oscar Trivia via the new set of nominations

Add to this list in the comments if you'd like. Refresh your screen for updates as we find more trivia...

Bradley Cooper scored his 9th nomination, this time for producing Nightmare Alley

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-With Nightmare Alley Bradley Cooper received his fourth nomination for producing, tying his Oscar nomination stats for acting. You know who else has four nominations for producing and four for acting? Warren Beatty! Of course Warren Beatty also has multiple writing and directing nods and an actual statue so he's still ahead of Cooper in the stats book.

- With his nomination for producing and writing Belfast, Kenneth Branagh now holds an Oscar record...

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12 takeaways from this morning's Oscar nominations

In no particular order - see the full list of nominations here.

1. BEST ACTRESS IS, TWO YEARS RUNNING NOW, A CHAOTIC NAIL-BITER
Last season provided us a rare nail-biter as different women kept winning lead actress at the televised shows: Andra Day, Viola Davis, Frances McDormand, Carey Mulligan. This year the nominations themselves have been routinely surprising. In fact the only woman to hit *every* key precursor was Lady Gaga but when the nominations were announced this morning she was the most shocking snub. Meanwhile, Penelope Cruz who'd only won the Volpi Cup and Kristen Stewart, who had struggled in the precursors despite year long "she's going to win!" hoopla both showed up. So we currently have NO idea who is going to win. You can make a case for any of the nominees. And, once again, none of them are in Best Picture nominated films.

2. QUALIFYING RELEASES ARE ALIVE AND WELL (SIGH)
Norway's incredible film The Worst Person in the World scored a surprise nomination in Best Original Screenplay (well deserved) despite only playing for a week unadvertised in theaters to qualify...

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Oscar Volley: Those DGA Nominees (and more) in Best Director

Our Oscar Volleys series is down to our last two categories. Here are Tim Brayton and Eric Blume to talk Best Director. (This volley was recorded before the BAFTA announcement but since those nominations are juried they probably won't have much bearing on Oscar outcomes.)

Eric Blume:  Tim, I'm thrilled to talk shop about the Best Director category. Let's start with Jane Campion, Denis Villeneuve, and Kenneth Branagh who all seem unlikely to miss.  I'm personally thrilled that Campion might ride her crest all the way to a win. Nobody else could have made The Power of the Dog work so layered and subtle, or told that story without it seeming heavy-handed, obvious, or silly. The film gives Campion the chance to do her specialty: embroiling us in a narrative and in character motivations so intensely strange yet fully human that we're transported by our own confusion and curiosity.  She has that special ability to deliver a rare grounded sense of whatthefuckery in her movies. There are moments where so much is happening psychologically, where so many meanings are transpiring simultaneously, that you can't even fully process it until it's passed you by.

I'm also a huge fan of Villeneuve, a natural-born filmmaker if there ever was one...

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