2018
The winner will be listed first, in CAPITAL letters.
Best Picture
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Black Panther
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BlacKkKlansman
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Bohemian Rhapsody
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The Favourite
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Green Book
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Roma
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A Star Is Born
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Vice
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Best Animated Feature Film
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Incredibles 2
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Isle of Dogs
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Mirai
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Ralph Breaks the Internet
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
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Actor:
Christian Bale in "Vice," Bradley
Cooper in "A Star Is Born," Willem Dafoe in "At
Eternity's Gate," Rami Malek in "Bohemian Rhapsody," Viggo
Mortensen in "Green Book"
Actress:
Yalitza Aparicio in "Roma," Glenn Close in
"The Wife," Olivia Colman in "The Favourite," Lady
Gaga in "A Star Is Born," Melissa McCarthy in "Can
You Ever Forgive Me?"
Supporting Actor:
Mahershala Ali in "Green Book," Adam Driver in "BlacKkKlansman,"
Sam Elliott in "A Star Is Born," Richard E. Grant in "Can
You Ever Forgive Me?," Sam Rockwell in "Vice"
Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams in "Vice," Marina de Tavira in "Roma," Regina
King in "If Beale Street Could Talk," Emma Stone in "The
Favourite," Rachel Weisz in "The Favourite"
Director:
Alfonso Cuarón for "Roma," Yorgos Lanthimos
for "The Favourite," Spike Lee for "BlacKkKlansman," Adam McKay
for "Vice," Pawel Pawlikowski for "Cold War"
The
Academy faced a few pre-Oscar problems before the announcement
of its nominations for the 2018 season on January 22, 2019. There
had been a growing backlash to a number of films nominated for
Best Picture (the rules now allowed up to ten films to be nominated
in the category), especially when there was usually no clear-cut
favorite in recent years. The Academy also postponed its announced
proposal to add an "achievement
in popular film" Oscar category - obviously an effort to increase
audience share (and boost sagging ratings and declining viewership)
and to be more inclusive -- parallel to the Academy's
move to vastly expand the diversity of its membership. It was a strange
idea that blockbuster box-office results could become the new
criteria for a 90-year-old award reportedly given on merit. In
fact, the new category might confuse the Best Picture race for both
a worthy big-studio, crowd-pleasing blockbuster and Best Picture
contender (such as Black Panther or A Star is Born).
In addition, there was a controversy over the hosting
position after years-old homophobic comments by the Academy's pick
for host, comedian Kevin Hart, caused him to step down after he
was allegedly asked to apologize. Although it had been considered
a major career boost for the selected host, the high-profile position
had become increasingly unpopular, due to criticism that most of
the past hosts were white males from late night talk shows, or
that the thankless position had become highly irrelevant, unnecessary
or outdated in today's varied entertainment programming.
The eight nominated
BP films for 2018 had some of the best overall box office totals
in many years. At the time of the nominations, 2018 Best Picture
nominees had a total of $1.26 billion (domestic) revenue, due to
the top three box-office hits: Black
Panther (at $700.5 million), A Star is Born ($204.8
million), and Bohemian Rhapsody (at $202.5 million), the 2nd highest
total in recent Oscar history. Only Best Picture nominees in 2009
(ten movies) at the time of the nominations had a higher total,
$1.51 billion (domestic), due mostly to Avatar
(2009), Up (2009), and The Blind Side (2009). The
efforts of the Academy to promote diversity also led to a few of
the eight Best Picture nominees prominently featuring LGBTQ characters
(Bohemian
Rhapsody, The Favourite, and Green Book), and
there was also a strong international showing (especially among
the Best Director nominees).
The picks for Best Picture (in descending
order based on number of total nominations) included a number of
films, many of which possessed two crucial qualities - they were
mostly pleasing box-office hits that also had terrific critical
reviews. Three
of the eight nominated films were about the subject of race:
- Netflix's and Alfonso Cuarón's moving 1970s,
grim Spanish-language period-piece Roma (Mex/US) (with
10 nominations, including two acting nominations),
a foreign language entry filmed in black and white from Mexico;
it was more likely to be the winner of Best Foreign Language
Film than Best Picture (but if it won, it would be the first
foreign language film Best Picture winner); it told about the
daily life of a working-class family in the year 1971 through
the eyes of its domestic maid
[Note: The film's 10 nominations tied it with Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon (2000, China/US/HK/Taiwan) for the most nominations
ever received for a Foreign Language film. Cuaron's film was the first Netflix
project to be nominated in the Best Picture category. Roma was
only the 11th non-English-language film ever nominated for Best Picture,
and would be the first to win. The nominations of two Latina actresses
in the same year marked a milestone. Roma could make Oscar
history by being the first film to win the Oscar for
Best Picture AND for Best Foreign Language film]
- director Yorgos Lanthimos' and Fox Searchlight
Pictures' UK/US period-piece melodrama The Favourite (with
10 nominations), a dark and ascerbic chronicling of intrigue (and sex) in the court
of the ailing Queen Anne (Best Actress nominated Olivia Colman),
the last Stuart monarch during her early 18th century reign in
England, involving two rival cousins vying to be court 'favourites':
confidante, secret lover and close friend Lady Sarah Churchill
(nominated Rachel Weisz) and newly-arrived charming, ambitious
yet fallen servant Abigail Hill (nominated Emma Stone) who also
vied for power and prestige
- actor/director Bradley Cooper's (his directorial
debut film) and Warner Bros.' retelling of the romantic backstage
musical A Star is Born (with 8 nominations), a major blockbuster
and tragic love story about successful musician and country singer
Jackson 'Jack' Maine (Best Actor nominated Bradley Cooper) and
unknown, struggling singer Ally (Best Actress nominated Lady Gaga)
who would soon overtake him in the spotlight; it was the fourth
version of the oft-filmed story
- writer/director Adam McKay's
and Annapurna Pictures' highly-critical biopic Vice (with
8 nominations), about the machinations of the powerful VP Dick
Cheney (Best Actor nominated Christian Bale) to President George
Bush (Sam Rockwell), and his interactions with his wife Lynne
Cheney (Best Actress nominated Amy Adams)
- Disney's/Marvel's and director Ryan Coogler's
superhero film Black Panther (with 7 nominations, mostly
in technical categories), with wide critical acclaim
and box-office popularity (unlike the previous year when Patty
Jenkins' DC comic-book movie Wonder
Woman (2018) was shut out of the race); it was the highest-grossing (domestic)
film of 2018, and it was Marvel's first black superhero
standalone film; it told about the conflict that developed between
King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) of the reclusive, technologically-advanced
(and fictional) African nation of Wakanda, who as the Black Panther,
fought off challenges to his rule by teaming up with CIA agent
Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) and members of the all-female
special forces of the Dora Milaje, to combat the misguided, villainous,
anti-isolationist challenger Erik 'Killmonger' Stevens (Michael
B. Jordan)
[Note: Black Panther became the first superhero movie
to be nominated for Best Picture. The domestic box-office total for
the superhero film, $700.5 million, was virtually the same as the
domestic total made by all nine of the Best Picture nominees in the
years 2016 and 2017! However, the entire cast of the film failed
to receive any acting nominations as did its director]
- director Spike Lee's and Universal's (Focus Features)
white-supremacist critique and period drama BlacKkKlansman (with
6 nominations), a Grand Prix-winning Cannes entry and summer hit,
based upon the true story of African-American police officer Ron
Stallworth (John David Washington) in Colorado Springs who successfully
infiltrated (via phone) a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, led
by David Duke (Topher Grace), while his secretly-Jewish associate
Detective Philip 'Flip' Zimmerman (nominated Adam Driver) posed
as him to attend KKK meetings and join the Klan
- 20th Century Fox's musical biopic Bohemian
Rhapsody (with 5 nominations),
about flamboyant rock star Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) of the
legendary rock band Queen, climaxing with the group's appearance
at the Live Aid (1985) concert - a flawed director-less film
(Bryan Singer was dismissed) with mixed reviews
- director Peter Farrelly's, writer Nick Vallelonga's
and Universal's polarizing 60's race-relations biopic Green
Book (with 5 nominations), (with story parallels to Best Picture winner Driving
Miss Daisy (1989)) about a road-trip tour through the Jim-Crow
American South, taken by African-American classical pianist Dr.
Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his racist, working class, New
York City-born chauffeur-driver Tony 'Lip' Vallelonga (Viggo
Mortensen); the two eventually developed a long-lasting friendship
The nominees for Best Director included three
non US-born directors, no female nominees, and one major surprise
nominee:
[Note: It
was rare that two directors of Foreign Language films were nominated
together in this category, something that had happened only
once before in Oscar history, in 1976.]
- 57 year-old Mexican-born Alfonso Cuarón
(with his second Best Director nomination and 10th overall, with
one previous win), for Roma (Mex./US)
[Note: Cuaron previously won Best Director for Gravity
(2013). For Roma, Cuaron received a total of four individual
nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, Best Cinematography,
and Best Picture - thereby tying the record of most decorated Oscar
nominee ever for the same film in the same year, with previous nominees
Orson Welles (for Citizen
Kane (1941)) and Warren Beatty (twice for Reds (1981) and
Heaven Can Wait (1978).]
- 44 year-old Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (with
his first Best Director nomination and 3rd overall), for The
Favourite
- 61 year-old Spike Lee (with his first Best Director
nomination and 5th overall), for BlacKkKlansman
[Note: Lee became the sixth African-American nominated
as Best Director]
- 50 year-old Adam McKay (with his second Best Director
nomination and fifth overall), for Vice
[Note: McKay was previously nominated as Best Director for The
Big Short (2015), and won Best Adapted Screenplay for the film]
- 61 year-old Polish-born Pawel
Pawlikowski (with his first Best Director nomination) for the sad and
joyless drama Cold
War (Pol.) (aka Zimna Wojna),
a black and white non-English language film set in both Poland and
France - about pretty, blonde singer Zula (Joanna Kulig) who
fell into a destructive relationship with handsome, charismatic
pianist and conductor Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) in the aftermath of WWII
(during the late 1940s through the 1960s)
[Note: Pawlikowski previously won Best Foreign Language Film for Ida
(2013, Pol.), awarded in 2014 (it was the sole Polish winner in
the category). Cold
War was
the first Polish-speaking
film nominated in one of the top eight categories, and it was the
eleventh Best Foreign Language Film nominated for Poland.]
Among the 20 nominees in the acting categories, there
were two African-Americans (in supporting categories), and two
Latina actresses.
The nominees for Best Actor included:
- 44 year-old UK-born Christian Bale (with his fourth
career nomination, including one Oscar win), for his transformed
role as Dick Cheney, the ruthless, controversial and powerful
VP to President George Bush (Sam Rockwell), in writer/director
Adam McKay's and Annapurna Pictures' biopic Vice
[Note: Bale's
first Best Actor nomination was for American Hustle (2013),
and he had two Best Supporting Actor nominations: The
Fighter (2010) (win) and The
Big Short (2015)]
- 44 year-old Bradley Cooper (with his fifth nomination)
for his role as aging, hard-drinking country star Jackson 'Jack'
Maine, who helped rising ingenue singer Ally (co-star Lady Gaga)
to a skyrocketing career and eventually married her, while his
own life fell apart (and ultimately led to suicide) due to substance
abuse, in A
Star is Born
[Note: Cooper's previous acting nominations included
two other Best Actor nominations: Silver Linings Playbook
(2012) and American Sniper (2014), and one for Best
Supporting Actor for American Hustle (2013)]
- 63 year-old Willem Dafoe (with his fourth nomination,
and no wins), a surprise underdog nomination for his role as
struggling, 19th century mentally-ill painter Vincent Van Gogh,
in director Julian Schnabel's At
Eternity's Gate
[Note: Dafoe's three other nominations were for Best Supporting Actor:
Platoon (1986), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), and The
Florida Project (2018)]
- 37 year-old Rami Malek (with his first nomination)
for his role as AIDS-suffering lead singer Freddie Mercury (lip-synching)
of the legendary and iconic rock band Queen, in Bohemian
Rhapsody
- 60 year-old Viggo Mortensen (with his third Best
Actor nomination, and no wins) for his role as Tony 'Lip' Vallelonga,
a crude-talking Italian-American New Yorker, bodyguard and chauffeur
employed to drive African-American
classical pianist Dr.
Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) around the Deep South in the 1960s
for a concert tour, in Green
Book
[Note: Mortensen's other two Best Actor nominations
were for Eastern Promises (2007) and Captain Fantastic (2016)]
The nominees for Best Actress included three
first-time nominees, and the favorite - the most nominated living actor to have never won an Oscar (now with seven nominations, including
4 Best Actress nominations):
- 25 year-old Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio (with
her first nomination for her debut film role), in her role as
domestic house-keeper/worker Cleo in the upper-middle class Mexico
City home of a couple in a strained marriage (Antonio and Sra.
Sofia (nominated Marina de Tavira)), in Alfonso Cuarón's Roma
[Note: With Aparicio's nomination, she became the second Mexican actress to be nominated for lead actress, following Salma
Hayek's role in Frida (2002). She was
only the fourth Latina Best Actress nominee in Oscar history.]
- 71 year-old Glenn Close (with her seventh career
nomination, and 4th Best Actress nomination, with no wins), for
her role as devoted, accommodating and repressed wife Joan Castleman,
in director Björn
Runge's and Sony Pictures Classics' independent film drama The
Wife,
a literary adaptation based upon Meg Wolitzer's book; the film
told about a talented woman's sublimated role (over 40 years)
to her mate, culminating with her trip with her unfaithful, passive-aggressive,
self-promoting husband Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) to receive
an undeserved Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm that brought
her to a breaking point, revealing that she was the author of
the books and had been unjustly treated for decades
[Note: Close's numerous other nominations included three Best
Actress nominations: Fatal Attraction (1987), Dangerous
Liaisons (1988), and Albert Nobbs (2011), and three
Best Supporting Actress nominations: The World According to
Garp (1982), The
Big Chill (1983), and The Natural (1984)]
- 44 year-old English actress Olivia Colman (with
her first nomination), for her role as frail Queen Anne, the
last Stuart monarch in Great Britain, who informally gave
up her ruling duties to two competitive cousins in her court,
Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham/Hill (Emma
Stone), in
The Favourite
- 32 year-old Lady Gaga (with her first nomination),
for her role as waitress and aspiring singing-songwriter ingenue
Ally, aided in her career by her future drug-abusing husband,
singer Jack Maine (co-star Bradley Cooper), in A
Star is Born
[Note: Notoriously, Judy Garland lost her bid for Best Actress
for the earlier A Star is Born (1954)]
- 48 year-old Melissa McCarthy (with her second
nomination), for her role as literary forgery scam artist Lee
Israel, in Can
You Ever Forgive Me?
[Note: Comedienne McCarthy was previously nominated
as Best Supporting Actress for Bridesmaids (2011).
McCarthy became the second performer to be nominated for two
competing lead actress awards in the same year: Best Actress
Oscar for Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), and Worst
Actress Razzie Award for The Happytime Murders (2018) and
Life of the Party (2018).]
The nominees for Best Supporting Actor included
three first-time nominees
- 44 year-old Muslim-practicing Mahershala Ali (with
his second nomination, and one previous win),
for his role as African-American jazz/classical pianist Dr. Don
Shirley, sophisticated and educated in contrast to his NYC-born,
crude-talking bodyguard-chauffeur Frank 'Tony Lip' Vallelonga
(Viggo Mortensen) escorting him around the segregated Deep South
in the 1960s for an 8-week concert tour, in
the comedy-drama
Green Book
[Note: Ali was a previous Best Supporting Actor
Oscar winner for Moonlight (2016)]
- 35 year-old Adam Driver (with his first nomination),
for his role as Detective Philip 'Flip' Zimmerman, the Jewish
co-worker of black Colorado Springs police officer Ron Stallworth
(John David Washington), who was recruited to attend KKK meetings
and become a member of the Klan
- 74 year-old Sam Elliott (with his first nomination),
for his role as Bobby Maine, the older half-brother and manager
of heavy-drinking country singer Jackson 'Jack' Maine (co-star
Bradley Cooper), in A
Star is Born
- 61 year-old English actor Richard E. Grant (with
his first nomination), for his scene-stealing role as queer,
drunken drifter Jack Hock, the loyal accomplice to discredited
con artist friend Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), in Can
You Ever Forgive Me?
- 50 year-old Sam Rockwell (with his second nomination,
and a previous Oscar win), for his role as President George Bush,
in the political biopic Vice
[Note: Rockwell previously won Best Supporting Actor for Three
Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). It was the
first instance of an actor nominated for portraying a
living US President, Bush 43.]
The nominees for Best Supporting Actress included
a mixture of Oscar winners, oft-nominated actresses, and first-timers:
- 44 year-old Amy Adams (with her sixth nomination
and fifth Best Supporting Actress nomination, with no wins),
for her role as VP Dick Cheney's wife Lynne Cheney, in Vice
[Note: Adams was previous nominated four times
for Best Supporting Actress: Junebug (2005), Doubt
(2008), The
Fighter (2010), and The Master (2012); also with one nomination
for Best Actress: American Hustle (2013)]
- 44 year-old Mexican actress Marina de Tavira (with
her first nomination), for her role as Sra. Sofia, an upper-middle
class Mexico City wife in a strained marriage with her husband
Antonio, in Roma
[Note: De Tavira was only the second Best Supporting
Actress nominated for a Foreign Language performance, following
Italian actress Valentina Cortese's nomination for Truffaut's Day
For Night (1973, Fr./It.), the winner of Best Foreign Language
film]
- 47 year-old Regina King (with her first nomination),
for her role as Harlem-dwelling Sharon Rivers, the mother of
pregnant 19 year-old daughter Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne), who was
engaged to marry wrongly-incarcerated fiancee Alonzo 'Fonny'
Hunt (Stephan James) - falsely-accused of rape, and Sharon's
ultimately failing efforts to clear Fonny's name, in If Beale
Street Could Talk
- 30 year-old Emma Stone (with her third nomination,
and one previous win for Best Actress), for her role as charming
but impoverished Abigail Masham/Hill - initially a maid but soon
held in high regard by Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), in The Favourite
[Note: Stone was nominated as Best Supporting Actress
for Birdman (2014), and won the Best Actress Oscar for La
La Land (2016)]
- 48 year-old British-born actress Rachel Weisz
(with one previous Oscar win) as one of two courtiers (both cousins)
serving frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman); she portrayed the Duchess
of Marlborough, Lady Sarah Churchill (the Queen's confidante,
lover, and adviser), in The
Favourite
[Note: Weisz won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Constant
Gardener (2005)]
Most Obvious Omissions and Snubs:
Best Picture:
There was five glaring omissions from this category:
- director Rob Marshall's and Disney's remake -
the musical fantasy sequel to the 1964 classic, Mary Poppins
Returns (with 4 nominations), about the title character -
an English nanny for the family of now-grown-up Jane and Michael
Banks (and Michael's three children)
- director Damien Chazelle's and Universal's intimate
epic First Man (with 4 nominations in technical categories),
about emotionally-repressed, heroic Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong
(Ryan Gosling) (and his strong and loyal wife Janet (Claire Foy))
and the high-stakes 1960s space race that culminated in Armstrong's
dangerous mission to walk on the moon in July 1969
- director Marielle
Heller's Can
You Ever Forgive Me? (with 3 nominations), based on the memoirs
of real-life Lee Israel - regarding the story of a sad-sack writer
Lee Israel (nominated Melissa McCarthy) who became a literary
scam artist by pawning fake (or forged) letters of dead celebrity
icons
- writer/director Barry Jenkins' tragic and heartbreaking
tearjerker drama from Annapurna Pictures, If Beale Street
Could Talk (with 3 nominations) adapted from James Baldwin's
1974 novel about a separated young black Harlem couple when the
male Alonzo 'Fonny' Hunt (Stephan James) was falsely accused
of rape (of a Puerto Rican female named Victoria) and wrongfully
imprisoned by racist cop Officer Bell (Ed Skrein), and his 19
year-old pregnant fiancee Tish Rivers' (KiKi Layne) efforts to
prove his innocence
- director Jon
M. Chu's big-budget romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians (with
0 nominations), Warners' big summer hit, based upon Peter Chiarelli's
and Adele Lim's screenplay adapted from the global best-selling
book by Kevin Kwan; it told about a native New Yorker and NYU Economics
Professor - Asian-American Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and her contact
with boyfriend Nick Young's (Henry Golding) wealthy family in Singapore,
including Nick's stoic mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh)
Best Director:
Four of the eight nominated films for Best Picture were missing nominations
for Best Director: Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green
Book and A Star Is Born. There were five major neglected
nominees, some of whom were displaced by the surprise nomination
for Pawil Pawlikowski - and there were no female nominees
for Best Director this year:
- Damien Chazelle (with one
Best Director Oscar win) for First Man [Note:
Chazelle had won Best Director for La
La Land (2016)]
- Ryan
Coogler for Black Panther
- Barry
Jenkins (previously nominated for Best Picture winner Moonlight
(2016)) for If
Beale Street Could Talk
- Peter Farrelly for Green Book
- Bradley Cooper (his directorial debut) for the
remake A
Star is Born
- also, Bo Burnham (his directorial debut) for the
coming-of-age tale Eighth Grade (with 0 nominations) starring
Elsie Fisher
Best Actor:
- 34 year-old John David Washington (Denzel's son)
was denied a nomination for his role as Colorado Springs
police officer Ron Stallworth, who infiltrated the local KKK
chapter along with Jewish colleague Detective 'Flip' Zimmerman
(Adam Driver) posing as a white supremacist, in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman
- 48 year-old Ethan Hawke was neglected for his
role as New York State Protestant (First Reformed) minister Ernst
Toller, in writer/director Paul Schrader's drama First
Reformed (with only 1 nomination, Schrader for Best Original
Screenplay - his first Oscar nomination) [Note: Hawke had two
previous Best Supporting Actor nominations for Training
Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014)]
Best Actress:
- 35 year-old English-born Emily Blunt was not recognized
for her role as enigmatic English nanny Mary Poppins in Depression-Era
London, in director Rob Marshall's and Disney's
remake Mary
Poppins Returns [Note: Mary Poppins
(1964) was the last
Disney live-action film to receive a Best Picture nomination
and it won a total of five awards]; Blunt was also not nominated
for her role in the sci-fi thriller A Quiet Place
Best Supporting Actor:
- 23 year-old Timothée
Chalamet was passed over, for his role as crystal
meth drug-addicted teen Nicholas 'Nic' Sheff, in director Felix
Van Groeningen's English-language feature film debut and Amazon
Studios' Beautiful Boy (with 0 nominations), based upon
a pair of memoirs by father and son David and Nic Sheff; Chalamet's
previous nomination was a Best Actor nomination for Call
Me By Your Name (2017)
Best Supporting Actress:
- 34 year-old English actress
Claire Foy was not nominated for her role as Neil
Armstrong's long-suffering, strong-willed, loyal first wife Janet
Shearon, who fiercely confronted the NASA brass, in the space-race
drama First
Man
- 51 year-old Nicole Kidman was also not nominated
for her role as conflicted mother Nancy Eamons of son Jared (Lucas
Hedges) (and wife of Baptist preacher Marshall (Russell Crowe)),
in Joel Edgerton's tearjerking gay-conversion-therapy drama Boy
Erased (with 0 nominations),
based on Garrard Conley's memoir
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