The 96th Oscar ceremony will be held soon, and the shortlists for ten categories have already been revealed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as reported by Variety.
Promising Nominees
Barbie by Greta Gerwig was the most-mentioned film overall, with five entries across all categories: sound, original song (that includes all three entries by Billie Eilish (What I Was Made For?), Dua Lipa (Dance the Night), and Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (I'm Just Ken), then the original score by the latter two.
But most surprisingly, Barbie failed miserably in the area of makeup and hairstyling. The Academy selected the unconventional comedy Beau is Afraid, the sports film Ferrari, and the controversial thriller Oppenheimer to be in the said category, among others.
Another movie that did well was Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese, which got four nominations overall, one for the best original song. Another was Society of the Snow by J.A. Bayona. Both movies could follow the lead of last year's surprise hit All Quiet on the Western Front, which bagged four Oscars.
For Visual Effects
Earlier this month, Variety exclusively unveiled the 20 visual effects finalists. It was previously known that Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer would not be moving further in that category. Nevertheless, the film's strengths were in its makeup, sound, and score mentions.
Out of the remaining ten features--including the monster film Godzilla: Minus One, the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Marvel's comedy-adventure Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the popular franchise Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny--the Visual Effects Branch will have to choose five films to be nominated.
Docus and International Features
The documentary feature Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie from Apple Original Films, American Symphony from Netflix, and The Eternal Memory from MTV Documentary Films were among the numerous frontrunners that landed places. The Mission from National Geographic was unexpectedly left out of the list, although Bobi Wine: The People's President was included. Anselm by Wim Wenders and Janus and Sideshow, as well as Magnolia's Kokomo City and Little Richard: I Am Everything, were omitted because they did not get sufficient votes.
Apart from the absence of Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World of Romania and The Settlers of Chile, there were not many shocking exclusions in the foreign feature race. On board are all expected, including The Zone of Interest from the United Kingdom and the Society of the Snow from Spain.
The final candidates will be announced on January 23, 2024, after the nomination process that runs from January 11 to 16 of that year. A full rundown of all the films that were shortlisted for those ten categories is available here.
