Oscars Complete Nominations List: ‘The Power Of The Dog’ Leads The Pack With 12 Nods

Netflix’s The Power of the Dog leads the pack of Oscar nominees this year, with 12 nominations including Best Picture, Writing and Directing for Jane Campion, and four acting nods. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trails with 10 nominations. While Dune is probably the most-viewed movie up for Best Picture, Villeneuve wasn’t nominated for Best Directing, nor were any of the actors honored, which doesn’t bode well for its chances. It also bears mentioning that many viewers didn’t take this as a complete movie, as it is part one of two and ends somewhat abruptly.

These two movies are up for Best Picture opposite Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, Apple TV+’s drama CODA, another Netflix original Don’t Look Up, Japanese import Drive My Car, Will Smith-starring biopic King Richard, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, Guillermo del Toro film noir remake Nightmare Alley, and Steven Spielberg’s lavish West Side Story.

Campion becomes the first female to earn two Best Director nominations in her career.  However, she didn’t win in 1994 for The Piano, but she DID take home Best Writing – Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. The Piano also earned Holly Hunter a Lead Actress Oscar and Anna Paquin a Supporting Actress trophy.

Benedict Cumberbatch is nominated for Best Lead Actor. His co-stars Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee are up against each other in the Best Supporting Actor category. It’s also interesting that Plemon’s real-life wife, Kirsten Dunst, is up for her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

The Power of the Dog is also nominated for Adapted Screenplay (Campion), Production Design, Sound, Cinematography, Editing, and Original Score.

In the Directing race, Campion is up against Branagh for Belfast, Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car, Anderson for Licorice Pizza, and Spielberg for West Side Story. In the Adapted Screenplay category, she is up against Siân Heder for Coda, Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe for Drive My Car, Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth for Dune, and Maggie Gyllenhaal for The Lost Daughter.

For Lead Actor, Cumberbatch faces Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos, Andrew Garfield for tick, tick…Boom!, Will Smith for King Richard, and Denzel Washington for The Tragedy of Macbeth.

In the race for Supporting Actor, Plemons and Smit-McPhee face off against Ciarán Hinds for Belfast, Troy Kotsur for CODA, and J.K. Simmons for Being the Ricardos. Dunst is competing for Supporting Actress against Jessie Buckley for The Lost Daughter, Ariana DeBose for West Side Story, Judi Dench for Belfast, and Aunjanue Ellis for King Richard.

There really wasn’t a Lead Actress in The Power of the Dog, so that leaves that competition to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter, Penélope Cruz for Parallel Mothers, Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos, and Kristen Stewart for Spencer.

It’s funny that Kristen Stewart is nominated for playing Princess Diana in Spencer while another project based on her life, Diana, the Musical racked up eight nominations for the Golden Raspberries/Razzies.

Back to Dune, it may fair well in the technical categories.  In addition to Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay, this epic is up for Sound, Visual Effects, Production Design, Score, Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, and Cinematography.

Another milestone that comes with these announcements is that with Belfast, Kenneth Branagh has now become the first person to be nominated over the course of his career in seven different categories — Picture, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Live Action Short, Actor, Supporting Actor, and Director.

There is a weird correlation between Best Picture winners and the Best Editing category in that all past winners have also been at least nominated for Editing, with the exception of Birdman. Belfast is not, which may work against it.

Disney accounts for three of the nominees in Best Animated Feature — Encanto, Luca, and Raya and the Last Dragon.  It competes against Flee and The Mitchells Vs. the Machines.

The unique project Flee is nominated for both Animated Feature and Documentary Feature, the first time this has ever happened.

Encanto is also nominated for Original Score and the song “Dos Oruguitas” is up for Original Song. It now seems odd that Disney chose to back this single, since “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has turned into an inescapable earworm and hit #1 on the Billboard charts.  “Dos Oruguitas” is up against “Be Alive” from King Richard, “Down To Joy” from Belfast, “No Time To Die” from No Time to Die, and “Somehow You Do” from Four Good Days.

The winners will be announced on the broadcast of the ceremonies on ABC TV on Sunday, March 27.

Which films are you pulling for?

Read all of the nominees below:

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Best Original Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Cinematography

Best Film Editing

Best Animated Feature Film

Best Animated Short Film

Best Live-Action Short Film

Best International Feature Film

Best Documentary Feature

Best Documentary Short Subject

Best Original Score

Best Original Song

Best Sound

Best Costume Design

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Best Production Design

Best Visual Effects