The nominations for this year’s Academy Awards have been announced, with Joker leading the pack with 11 nods.
The comic book villain origin story is up for best picture, best director and best actor for Joaquin Phoenix, plus eight other awards.
The Irishman, 1917 and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood follow with 10 nominations each.
Britain’s Cynthia Erivo, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce and Florence Pugh are all up for acting prizes.
Pugh, up for best supporting actress for Little Women, put her first Oscar nomination down to “hard work” and persistence.
“You’ve got to keep on going and hopefully you’ll see something at the end of the tunnel,” the 24-year-old told BBC News.
Joker’s 11 nominations equals its tally at the British Academy Film Awards, whose nominations were announced last week.
At the Oscars, though, at least one acting contender – Harriet star Erivo – will be from a BAME background.
Yet the awards are sure to receive some censure for announcing another all-male line-up in its best director category.
Greta Gerwig, nominated for best director in 2018 for Lady Bird, did not make the cut again with Little Women.
Pugh called her omission both “sad” and “hard to navigate”. “She is in this film in the writing and the directing [and] in every single performance,” she continued.
Only five women have ever been nominated for the best director Oscar and only one – The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow – has ever won.
| Oscar nominations 2020 – leading films | |
|---|---|
| Film | Nominations |
| Joker | 11 |
| Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood | 10 |
| The Irishman | 10 |
| 1917 | 10 |
| Marriage Story | 6 |
| Parasite | 6 |
| Little Women | 6 |
| Jojo Rabbit | 6 |
| Ford v Ferrari | 4 |
Like Joker, The Irishman, 1917 and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood are all up for the best picture prize.
The other nominees are Ford vs Ferrari (aka Le Mans 66), Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, Marriage Story and South Korean film Parasite.
Phoenix is joined in the best actor category by Marriage Story’s Adam Driver, Once Upon a Time’s Leonardo DiCaprio, Pain and Glory’s Antonio Banderas and The Two Popes’ Pryce.
Erivo’s best actress rivals include Little Women’s Saoirse Ronan, Bombshell star Charlize Theron and Renee Zellweger for Judy.
Scarlett Johansson is nominated for Marriage Story and gets another nod in the supporting actress category for Jojo Rabbit.
