The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s Montana-set drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a threatening rancher, has swept the board at the Oscar nominations.
The film is up for a dozen prizes, including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best actor for Cumberbatch, best supporting actress for Kirsten Dunst and best supporting actor for both Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons.
Campion last won an Oscar in 1994 for The Piano, which began its journey in Cannes, where it won the Palme d’Or. That film was nominated for best director and best picture but lost out to Schindler’s List, with Campion making do with best adapted screenplay. She now becomes the first female film-maker to have two best director nominations.
If The Power of the Dog triumphs, it will be the second consecutive year a woman has won best picture and best director, following Chloé Zhao’s run with Nomadland. The only other female director to have taken either prize is Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010.
The film’s dominance this season is a significant victory for Netflix, the streamer behind the film, as well as titles such as Adam McKay’s polarising satire Don’t Look Up (in the running for four awards) and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter (three nominations).
Up for 10 awards is Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic set in the distant future. Steven Spielberg’s take on West Side Story took seven nominations, as did Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s black-and-white autobiographical coming-of-age tale.
One of these was for Judi Dench, whose nod in the best supporting actress category makes her the second oldest acting Oscar nominee ever (following Christopher Plummer’s nod for All the Money in the World, when he was 88).
Dench’s Belfast co-star, Ciarán Hinds, is also nominated for best supporting actor; Branagh is up for best director and best original screenplay.
Branagh becomes the first person to secure Oscar nominations in seven different categories, having previously been up for live action short, best adapted screenplay, best supporting actor and best actor (for Henry V). Speaking on Tuesday, Branagh, who has yet to win an Academy Award, said he was thinking of “my mother and father, and my grandparents – how proud they were to be Irish, how much this city meant to them.
“They would have been overwhelmed by this incredible honour – as am I. Given a story as personal as this one, it’s a hell of a day for my family, and the family of our film.”
Olivia Colman, who won best actress in 2019 for The Favourite, is in contention in the same category this year for her role as a depressed author holidaying on a Greek island in The Lost Daughter. Jessie Buckley, who plays her character’s younger self, is also in the running for best supporting actress.
Colman was snubbed in the equivalent Bafta shortlist last week, as was Kristen Stewart for her turn as Princess Diana in Spencer. Both women feature on the Oscars list, alongside Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos, Jessica Chastain in televangelist biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Penélope Cruz for her latest collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers. It is a first nomination for Stewart, 31.
Lady Gaga has been nominated for her role in Ridley Scott’s true crime drama House of Gucci in almost every preceding awards lineup, but was absent here. Other surprise omissions include last year’s best actress winner, Frances McDormand, for best supporting actress in The Tragedy of Macbeth and Passing, Rebecca Hall’s acclaimed directorial debut, which was overlooked entirely.
Will Smith moves into pole position for his first ever Oscar win for his performance as the ambitious father and tennis coach to a young Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard, which also picked up a nomination for his young co-star, Aunjanue Ellis, as best supporting actress.
The best actor shortlist is rounded out by Cumberbatch, Andrew Garfield, who plays Rent creator Jonathan Larson in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick … BOOM!, Denzel Washington for The Tragedy of Macbeth and Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos.
All five men are repeat nominees, and taken as a whole, the 2022 shortlist was light on new talent. Yet a few surprises did emerge, in particular the three nominations for Coda, a Sundance hit featuring a predominantly deaf cast.
Troy Kotsur’s best supporting actor nomination makes him only the second ever deaf actor up for an Oscar, following his Coda co-star Marlee Matlin’s win in 1986 for Children of a Lesser God.
Coda joins an eclectic best picture shortlist – the only category which at this stage all 9,500 Oscar members vote for – alongside The Power of the Dog, Dune, Belfast, West Side Story, Drive My Car, Don’t Look Up, King Richard, Licorice Pizza and Nightmare Alley.
Drive My Car’s director, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, is also nominated for best director, best adapted screenplay and best international feature – a breakthrough for a film not in the English language which would have felt more striking before the success in February 2020 of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.
The nominations were announced by black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross and comedian Leslie Jordan, a healthcare worker, a basketball-loving high schooler, a teacher and a New York firefighter. Voting closes in more than a month, before the ceremony itself on 27 March 2022. The Bafta awards take place a fortnight beforehand.
Last year’s mid-pandemic ceremony was an experimental, socially distanced affair held at Los Angeles’s Union Station, which saw record-breakingly low TV audiences tuning in.
Details of this year’s event are still to be confirmed, but the Academy has indicated that it will again feature a host. Names rumoured to be taking on the post include Conan O’Brien, Pete Davidson and Spider-Man star Tom Holland.
