An Annual Round of Oscar Trivia Following The Nominations...
Thursday, January 22, 2026 at 10:00PM by Nathaniel R
THIS POST WILL GROW OCCASSIONALLY SO CONSIDER REFRESHING YOUR SCREEN OR RETURNING...
Amy Madigan breaking things onscreen and off!
We'll add to this for the next few days so if you wanna contribute, include stats you noticed in the comments! These stats will also probably show up on the Oscar charts too but why not collect them here first or simultaneously while still hopped up on Oscar fever...
RECORDS BROKEN OR SET
• Longest Gap Between Acting Nominations for a Woman
Weapons standout Amy Madigan's 40 year gap between Oscar nominations (her first nomination was in 1985's Twice in a Lifetime) is not an all time record but it is the record for a female actor...
The record, either gender, is currently held by Judd Hirsch with 42 years between nominations (Ordinary People to Fablemans), followed by Henry Fonda who had a 41 year gap (between The Grapes of Wrath and On Golden Pond). Before Madigan's unexpected witchy slay in last summer's horror hit, the longest gap for a female actor between nominations was Helen Hayes's 39 years (between the silent picture The Sin of Madelon Claudet and the disaster epic Airport).
• Most Nominated Movie of All Time
The big story, already covered in the initial reactions is that Sinners broke the all time record for Most Oscar Nominations for a single film with 16. The previous record (14) was held jointly by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). While we knew Sinners had a shot to break it we figured at least the Makeup and Visual Effects branches would look elsewhere (since Sinners doesn't offer what they usually look for). We are wrong. We sincerely hope Sinners keeps the record for ever because no film needs to be nominated in every category. No film is the Best at everything!!!
SINNERS has fun color-coded costumes
• Most Nominated / Winning Black Woman of All Time
Ruth E Carter, nominated for Best Costume Design for the 5th time, breaks the tie she shared with Viola Davis as the most nominated black woman in Oscar history. She's also the most winning in terms with two Oscars to date! Her nominations: Malcolm X, Amistad, Black Panther (win), Black Panther Wakanda Forever (win), and now Sinners.
• First Black Woman Nominated in Best Cinematography
Autumn Durald Arkapaw is the third black DP ever to be nominated, after Remi Adefarasin (Elizabeth) and Bradford Young (Arrival), but she's the first black woman.
• First Woman To Be Nominated For Best Director AFTER Winning
With her Best Director nomination for Hamnet, Chloe Zhao becomes the first woman to score a Best Director nod after having already won the prize. She's only the second woman to secure a second nomination in the category but in the other case (Jane Campion) the auteur had to wait for the second race to win.
• First Norwegian Actor Ever Nominated Outside of Best Actress
Inga Ibsdottir Lilleas is the first Norwegian to compete in any of the acting categories beyond Best Actress (where Liv Ullmann was an intermittent presence in the 1970s). And speaking of...
• Most Nordic Talent Ever Nominated in a Single Year!
With nominations for Norwegians and Danes and Swedes via The Ugly Stepsister, Frankenstein, Sentimental Value,...I am pretty sure we have the most Nordic talent (at least 9 people) ever nominated in a single year and I haven't even checked the shorts and doc categories yet: Renate Reinsve, Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt, Inga Lilleeas, Dan Laustsen, Olivier Bougge Coute, Thomas Foldberg, Anne Catherine Sauerberg, and Stellan Skarsgard!
THERE'S PROBABLY SOME COOL STATS HERE BUT I'M TOO TIRED TO CONTEMPLATE HOW TO RESEARCH IT...
• Fastest Collection of Best Picture Nominees on the Filmography?
Timothée Chalamet has already appeared in 8 Best Picture nominees (Marty Supreme being the latest) which is not a record (Leonardo DiCaprio is currently in second place of all time with 12) but the speed at which it has happened might be. It's only taken him 9 years to do that which means he's basically averaging 1 Best Picture appearance a year since he became famous! Next up: Dune Part Three
• "All of them Witches!"
Oscar voters don't usually go for genre films but Madigan isn't the first witch nominated -- but is there more than just Ruth Gordon's satan-loving "Minnie Castevet" in Rosemary's Baby before her? I cannot recall and I've been staring at the computer screen all day and my eyes are soooooo tired. Tannis, anyone?
NOT A RECORD BUT INTERESTING
A great year at the Oscars for Nordic talent
• Following in Liv Ullman & Max Von Sydow's Footsteps
Renate Reinsve breaks the long drought following Liv Ullman's stellar career to become the second Norwegian woman to score an Oscar Best Actress nomination. Similarly Stellan Skarsgárd becomes only the second Swedish man to compete for Best Supporting Actor (the first and only other was Max Von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). So in a way the most iconic Nordic auteur of all time, Ingmar Bergman, has blessed this year's Oscar race from the great beyond.
• Second Film to Score Three Acting Nominations for Black Actors / Third Film to Feature Black Nominees in Both Supporting Categories
Sinners isn't the first film to accomplish either of these things but it's not common. For landing in both supporting categories the first was Dreamgirls (2008) followed by Moonlight (2016)... in both cases one of the pair won the Oscar which is either very good or very misleading news for Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku. For three acting nominations for Black talent, Sinners is the first since Color Purple (1985).
Brad Pitt 4evah 🖤
• Brad Pitt, Multihyphenate
With his nomination for producing F1, Brad Pitt's Producing career track has now equalled his acting track in Oscar eyes: He now has 4 nominations and 1 win (12 Years A Slave) as a Producer and 4 nominations and 1 win (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood) as an Actor.
• Shakespeare Always Comes with Costumes
Hamnet is the third film with William Shakespeare as a character to score Oscar nominations after Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anonymous (2011). The only uniting factor is that they were all nominated for Best Costume Design.
• Second Favourite Frankenstein Riff
Frankenstein will have to win 5 Oscars to take the title of "Oscar's Favourite Frankenstein Riff" away from Poor Things which won 4 trophies for two Oscar cycles ago. But we think it's unlikely since it has two fewer nominations and isn't half as good.
• Whoever Wins, It Won't Be A Repeat
While we don't have a category of all newbies (well, i haven't researched the shorts yet so hold that thought) there are a couple of categories with no previous winners in them so someone is about to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They are BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, and BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. Are there any others... I'm not done looking.
THEY'LL SET A RECORD IF THEY WIN
• Dan Laustsen could become the first Dane to win Best Cinematography (Frankenstein)
• Autumn Arkapaw could become the first woman to win Best Cinematography (Sinners)
THEY WON'T SET A RECORD IF THEY WIN BUT IT'LL STILL BE INTERESTING
• If Brazil wins a second consecutive Oscar with The Secret Agent (following I'm Still Here's triumph) it will be the first time in almost 40 years that a country has won back to back Oscars (that'd be Denmark who won back to back with Babette's Feast (1987) and Pelle the Conqueror (1988). Back-to-back wins happened a lot in the first thirty years of the category but then it got and stayed real competitive.
Reader Comments (7)
Other witches: Erivo, Grande, Streep in Into the Woods.
I was wondering about this one: Emma Stone has now been nominated three times for performances directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Is this an actress record for being nominated for working with the same director? Off the top of my head, I can think of actors who have more (De Niro has four Scorsese nominations), but what about actresses?
First year ever no film got between 5-7 nominations??? It goes from 4 to 8!!
Bette Davis was nominated thrice for working with William Wyler: Jezebel, The Letter, and The Little Foxes.
Diane Ladd is kind of a witch in Wild at Heart.
I'm not sure if this is a record, but it's gotta be near the bottom (refreshingly) of total acting nominations for playing real people: just Hawke, Hudson, and Buckley. Chalamet is borderline but ultimately fictional imo.
Also, this might be the first time there are three nominated actors playing non-people - Elordi, Madigan, and someone else.
Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson became the 3rd mother-daughter duo nominated for Best Actress.
1st - Judy Garland/Liza Minnelli
2nd - Fernanda Montenegro/Fernanda Torres.
EDIT: I believe Diane Ladd/Laura Dern also apply if someone could fact check me on that?
I’m pretty sure this is the first time all four acting categories include at least one foreign language performance.
@Marsha Mason: you’re so right about how refreshing it is for nominating actors playing original characters.
My contributions: I’m just throwing out some ideas in case others know if these are records:
1) I see Geeta Gandbhir nominated for separate films in Documentary and also Documentary Short. Has that been done before?
2) Diane Warren’s record continues (at least I think she has the record).
3) Natalie Portman is nominated for best animated feature. Is she the first Best Actress winner to do so?
4) Michael B. Jordan was nominated for playing twins. The last one was, what, Nicolas Cage in Adaptation? That’s gotta be a short list of actors to do that.
5) Out of 20 possible films, we only have 12 represented films amongst all the acting categories. That’s probably not a record but it seems lower than usual.
6) If Ryan Coogler wins Best Director, he’d finally be the first black director to win that category.