The longest awards season in modern history is finally coming to a close with the opening of Oscar voting for the Academy’s roughly 10,000 members.
The feeling among industry professionals and awards strategists is that many in the Academy at large decided to bow out of the first round of nomination voting. With a smaller pool of candidates to consider — and more time to watch movies — they might feel more compelled to engage in their civic duty to vote.
David Fincher’s “Mank” leads with 10 nominations but looks in play for one to three prizes: production design, score and supporting actress for Amanda Seyfried. For Netflix, all its chips are on Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” — the streaming giant is looking to land its first best picture winner by duplicating the success of “Driving Miss Daisy” , “Argo” and “Green Book” , all of which won the top prize without a directing nomination.
Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” have remained very much in the conversation the past few months. But a win in the top category for either film would be unprecedented. In the past 27 years, there has never been a picture winner that failed to score the top prize from any major guild or televised award — including BAFTA, Critics Choice, the DGA, the Globes, the PGA and SAG.