A Record Number of First Time Nominees at the Oscars!

By: Christopher James

Four cast members of Everything Everywhere All At Once received their first career Oscar nominations this year.

Every Oscar year brings both big snubs and wonderful new stats. In particular, this year stands out due to the overwhelming crop of first time Oscar nominees in acting. Out of the twenty acting nominees, sixteen of them are celebrating their first time nominees. This doesn’t point to a green crop of actors since many of them are veterans who have been long overlooked, such as Bill Nighy and Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, the average age of the Best Actress lineup is 46, which would put it in the top ten oldest Best Actress lineups, based on The Film Experience’s work years ago. Having a healthy crop of new nominees is a sign of health for both the Academy and the film world - they aren’t defaulting to people they’ve rewarded before, but are searching elsewhere for new faces or people they’ve overlooked in the past.  So how rare is it to have this amount of first time nominees?

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Fantasy Cast 2022 Edition: Which Former Acting Winners Should Present For Each Oscar Nominee?

By: Christopher James

Here at the Film Experience, we think the longer the Oscar ceremony, the better - more glitz, more glamor, more movie stars! One of the best examples of this working out was the 2008 Oscars, where previous winners of each acting category gave a special presentation to each acting nominee (see this Supporting Actress example that Murtada wrote about). We did this exercise last year where we paired each nominee with the previous winner we would pair them with for this presentation. Now that we know this year’s acting nominees, we were eager to repeat for the 2022 crop of actors.

See who we would choose after the jump (and Oscar producers, please take these free ideas)...

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Yeoh with the good timing

by Nathaniel R

Michelle Yeoh in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

How's this for campaign timing? While Oscar nominations are announced January 24th (next Tuesday - final predictions right here tomorrow)  Voting on the actual winners doesn't take place until the first week of March (Oscar night is March 12th). In that crucial month inbetween the nominations and the ceremony, look what's coming back to theaters -- CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) in a 4K restoration! That's right. Michelle Yeoh's other Oscar-worthy Lead Actress performance will be back in theaters on February 17th. Cate Blanchett (TAR) will be hard to beat in Best Actress this time around but this can't exactly hurt the cause to make history in voting for Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once); awards races never happen in vacuums and feelings about whole careers and historical precedent also often enter the room. No Asian actress has ever been nominated for Best Actress and thus no Asian actress has won*... 

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What Are Each Actor's Chances at Oscars Post-SAG Nominations?

By: Christopher James

After a surprise omission at the SAG Awards, what are Michelle Williams' chances at scoring an Oscar nomination for The Fabelmans?Now that the SAG Awards nominations have been announced, we have a slightly clearer picture of the acting races as we get closer to Oscar nomination morning. I use the word “slightly” because there’s always room for surprises. In fact, last year saw four acting nominees earn Oscar nominations without any precursor citations from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG Awards.

At this stage of the awards race, we have two questions to ask. Which actor with nominations from all three groups will be snubbed by Oscar? Which actor can sneak in without these precursors?

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Team Experience Predictions Chart - Round 4 - Post Holidays, Pre Awards Shows

We're polling the Team Film Experience on where the Oscar race stands. This week Best Picture, Director, and the Acting and Writing categories.

It has been over a month since we’ve checked in on the directing, acting and writing categories. Since then, Avatar has soared at the box office, Babylon has flopped and both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards have announced their nominations. Some categories look completely different than they did at the end of November. Others, funny enough, remain the same. One category has a contender who is unanimously on the top of everyone’s predictions… and it’s not the one you think. 

Check out our predictions after the jump…

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