Need to see Drive My Car, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story. Free Guy getting a nomination is hilarious. Very cool to see Parallel Mothers' score and The Worst Person in the World's screenplay get nominated.
Rooting for Dunst and Plemons. Would be so cool if they were the first married couple that each win their own Oscar on the same night.
Kind of surprised The Rescue wasn't nominated for best documentary feature. There is a precedence for Nat Geo docs getting nominated, and it was certainly better than Free Solo who won the Oscar in 2018.
Awesome for Smit-McPhee to be nominated for best supporting actor. Garfield should take home best actor. Would like to see Shang-Chi win best visual, but Dune will most likely get it.
In Best Director when they said Hamaguchi's name after Branagh's I nearly did an actual spit take thinking they had snubbed Campion. Then I realized they for some reason weren't announcing the nominees in alphabetical order.
Number of total nominations per Best Picture nominee: Belfast - 7 (Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Original Song, Sound) CODA - 3 (Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay) Don't Look Up - 4 (Original Screenplay, Editing, Original Score) Drive My Car - 4 (Director, International Feature, Adapted Screenplay) Dune - 10 (Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Editing, Makeup, Production Design, Original Score, Sound, Visual Effects) King Richard - 6 (Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing, Original Song) Licorice Pizza - 3 (Director, Original Screenplay) Nightmare Alley - 4 (Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design) The Power of the Dog - 12 (Director, Actor, Supporting Actor x 2, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Original Score, Sound) West Side Story - 6 (Director, Supporting Actress, Costume Design, Production Design, Sound)
Feel like Best Picture is a complete toss-up; feel like at least half of them have a real shot at winning
I think The Power of the Dog has to be the Best Picture frontrunner as of now. It has a ton of momentum, a director who is "due" (which the Academy always loves), and it got the most nominations. Also it arguably is the best movie of the year. It's certainly in the top three of the Best Picture nominees (along with Drive My Car and Licorice Pizza).
Power of the Dog seems like the biggest favorite - seems likely that it'll take Picture / Director / Adapted Screenplay, similar to how Nomadland swept last year. Smith, Kidman, Smit Mc-Phee, and DeBose all seem to be favorites. Dune will sweep technicals. Original Screenplay seems like a toss-up between Belfast and Licorice Pizza, though I could also see a terrible reality that Don't Look Up could win. Encanto for Animated, Flee or Summer of Soul for Documentary, Drive My Car for International. This honestly could be a very cut and dry year.
Personally, I didn't really care to finish The Power of the Dog tbh; story just didn't vibe with me at all. Production/set design was a bit weird too. Might have to give it another chance though