OSCARS CATCH BARBENHEIMER FEVER
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer leads the pack for the 96th Academy Awards, securing 13 nominations, among them Best Picture. It’s up against a diverse field that includes Greta Gerwig's Barbie, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Bradley Cooper’s Maestro.
Last year's box-office champ, Barbie, which made $1.4b worldwide, received eight noms; Poor Things nabbed 11, Killers of the Flower Moon 10 and Maestro seven. All are up for Best Picture.
Barbie becomes the 11th film in Oscar history to have two songs nominated in the Best Original Song category: Billie Eilish and FINNEAS' “What Was I Made For?” and Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt’s “I’m Just Ken.”
The last time two songs were nominated for a single film was La La Land in 2016 and before that, Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. Historically, having two noms from one film is a good thing: In the previous 10 cases, a song from the double nominee won the Oscar.
The two Barbie songs have already secured significant awards victories: The Golden Globe went to Eilish and FINNEAS, while Ronson and Wyatt took home the Critics Choice trophy.
"What Was I Made For" and "I'm Just Ken" will contend for the statuette in a field spanning Jon Batiste’s “It Never Went Away,” from American Symphony (co-written by Batiste and Dan Wilson), Scott George’s “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” from Killers of the Flower Moon, and Diane Warren’s “The Fire Inside,” from Flamin' Hot. Batiste and Eilish and FINNEAS have won previously. Warren’s Oscar nom is her 15th; she has never won. (But hey, it took Susan Lucci 19 tries to finally get her manicured mitts on that Emmy.)
John Williams secured his 50th nomination in the score category for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. (It's his 54th nom overall.) He’ll compete with the late Robbie Robertson, nominated for his work on Killers of the Flower Moon, Laura Karpman for American Fiction, Ludwig Göransson, who won the Globe for Oppenheimer, and Jerskin Fendrix for Poor Things.
The other Best Picture nominees are American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Past Lives and The Zone of Interest. The full list of nominees can be found here.
The 96th Academy Awards will be held 3/10 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and air live on ABC.
