Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard’s musical about a transgender gangster escaping the mob in Mexico, has set a record for the most Oscar nominations received by a film not in English.
The film took 13 at the announcement on Thursday, which is three more than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2001 and Roma in 2018.
Karla Sofía Gascón, the film’s star, is the first out trans actor to receive an Oscar nomination. Elliot Page was nominated for Juno in 2008, 12 years before his transition.
Audiard’s film received numerous nominations, including supporting actress (Zoe Saldaña), director, picture, adapted screenplay, international feature, editing, cinematography, makeup and hairstyling, original score, best sound, and two original songs.
Meanwhile, The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic about a Hungarian architect (Adrien Brody) who moves to the United States after WWII, received ten nominations, as did Wicked, the box office smash adaptation of the Broadway musical.
James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown received eight nominations, as did Edward Berger’s papal thriller Conclave, which starred Ralph Fiennes.
However, Berger, whose All Quiet on the Western Front was an awards sensation two years ago, did not receive a directing nomination, and despite a strong supporting cast that included John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Lucian Msamati, the only acting nomination other than Fiennes went to supporting actress Isabella Rossellini.
However, A Complete Unknown performed better than expected, with Edward Norton (as Pete Seeger) and Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez) nominated for awards alongside star Timothée Chalamet.
Only one of the ten films nominated for best picture was directed by a woman, Coralie Fargeat’s controversial body horror The Substance. Fargeat was also the only female screenwriter with a solo credit among the ten scripts in contention.
There were a few surprises in the leading actress category, including industry veterans Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie being overlooked for their roles in Babygirl and Maria. Instead, Demi Moore has emerged as the category’s frontrunner, having gained significant momentum since her Golden Globe victory earlier this month.
She and Gascón will face Cynthia Erivo in Wicked, Mikey Madison in Sean Baker’s sex worker romance Anora, and Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ true story about a Brazilian abduction.
Brits were disappointed, including Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who had been expected to follow up her 1997 nomination for Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies with one for her reunion with Leigh in Hard Truths.
Hugh Grant (for the horror film Heretic) and Daniel Craig (for the erotic obsession drama Queer) did not repeat their Golden Globe nominations to make the final five leading actors.
Along with Brody, Fiennes, and Chalamet, Colman Domingo stars in the prison drama Sing Sing, and Sebastian Stan stars in the unflattering Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice; the inclusion of Stan and supporting actor Jeremy Strong (as Roy Cohn) could be interpreted as Hollywood’s early attack on the returning president.
Kieran Culkin leads the supporting actor nominations for his role in Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust tour comedy A Real Pain. Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldaña appears to be a safe bet in the supporting actress category. Denzel Washington, on the other hand, missed out on his 11th nomination for his stunning performance in Gladiator II.
Ridley Scott’s belated sequel to his 2000 Oscar-winning hit was expected to repeat the trick at this year’s ceremony; however, it was only nominated for Best Costume Design.
Meanwhile, the Academy did not recognize either of Luca Guadagnino’s films from last year, Challengers or Queer, and neither Pamela Anderson nor Jamie Lee Curtis received nominations for The Last Showgirl.
There was also disappointment for Irish-language music drama Kneecap, which, despite being nominated for six Baftas, failed to make the Oscar cut in any category.
Emilia Pérez leads the best international feature shortlist, which also includes I’m Still Here, the Danish baby-killing drama The Girl with the Needle, Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian drama The Seed of a Sacred Fig, and the Latvian cat cartoon Flow.
That film will also compete in the animated film shortlist against Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, The Wild Robot (which received three nominations overall), and Inside Out 2, which was considered an outside bet for best picture.
The documentary shortlist was similarly skewed towards the chewy, leaving no room for Will Ferrell’s road trip Will & Harper or a look back at Christopher Reeve’s life.
Instead, No Other Land, a weighty investigation into the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta district, competes for the award against Porcelain War, about Ukrainian artists, Black Box Diaries, about a seminal sexual harassment case in Japan, an ambitious jazz-fueled study of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba’s assassination in 1961, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Sugarcane, an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Following the California wildfires, this year’s nominations were delayed twice to give 10,000 voters – roughly 60% of whom live in Los Angeles – more time to see films and vote. The vote closed last Friday; it is unclear what effect the subsequent debate over the use of AI in The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez will have.
Both films used voice-cloning technology, with the former improving Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian accents and the latter improving Emilia Pérez’s singing voice as Karla Sofía Gascón.
Following the revelation, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet defended his stars, stating: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”
A letter from the Academy’s CEO, Bill Kramer, and president Janet Yang, sent to all members on Wednesday, confirmed that the ceremony will “celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires”.
“We will honour Los Angeles as the city of dreams, showcasing its beauty and resilience, as well as its role as a beacon for film-makers and creative visionaries for over a century,” they said further. “We will reflect on the recent events while highlighting the strength, creativity, and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry.”
The Academy also announced that it would “move away” from live performances during the broadcast in favor of honoring songwriters, whose role has long been perceived to be undervalued in the ceremony.
Conan O’Brien will host the Oscars this year, which will be held on March 2. The Bafta Awards take place a fortnight earlier, on February 16th.
