By Sophia Glenn
The 2024 Oscar nominations are in, and the critics are buzzing. After a year’s worth of films to analyze, the 23 categories for this year’s Oscar nominations have been published and some of the results have shocked us.
Many people agree on what an amazing year it has been for the film industry. This year’s nominees for Best Picture are American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest.
Out of all of the films this past year, Oppenheimer has come in as the top nominated film, earning 13 nominations in total. Others include Poor Things with 11 nominations, Killers of the Flower Moon with 10, and Barbie with eight.
These nominations may not come as a surprise to film buffs. Still, there has been controversy about some nominations, or lack thereof, for categories like Best Actress and Best Director on social media.
With movies like Barbie, which brought in almost $1.5 billion in box office revenue and became the largest debut for a film directed by a woman, people expected to see that representation reflected in the nominees. Although the film itself was nominated eight times, Margot Robbie, who played Barbie, was not given a nomination for Best Actress.
Robbie was left out with nominations being given to actresses Emma Stone for her role in Poor Things, Annette Bening for Nyad, Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, Sandra Hüller for Anatomy of a Fall, and Carey Mulligan for Maestro.
Robbie was expected to be at the top of the list, given her larger-than-life performance in Barbie. Director Greta Gerwig was also not nominated for Best Director—another shock to the fans.
“I was honestly shocked,” said Annabelle Jenkins, a University of Tampa student. “I really enjoyed the movie and I think both Margot and Greta deserved credit for their parts in the making of Barbie.”
Although we did not see nominations for the director or leading actress in Barbie, America Ferrera was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for their roles in the film.
Other nominees for Best Supporting Actress are Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, Jodie Foster for Nyad, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers.
Nominees for Best Supporting Actor include Sterling K. Brown for American Fiction, Robert De Niro for Killers of the Flower Moon, Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer and Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things.
Another snub from the nominees list that has sent fans into a frenzy was for Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. Critics also commented on DiCaprio being snubbed from the Screen Actors Guild Award nominations earlier this month.
While social media has been flooded with the latest Oscar buzz, the real question is who will make it off the nominee list and go home with an award. The anticipation has been building up, and only time will tell who will win big. The 96th Academy Awards show will be airing Sunday, March 10 at 7 p.m. on ABC.