44 days til Oscar nominations. Screenplay stats!

by Nathaniel R

With only 44 days until Oscar nominations and lots of confusion as to what might be nominated for screenplay (there are seemingly 7 locks for Original and only 1 contender for Adapted -- the math doesn't work. Haha!) let's use today's numerical trivia prompt for writing awards. Fact: Oscar's 4 favorite screenwriters have 44 nominations between them for writing. That's a lot of hogging of writing honors. They are...

OSCAR'S 20 FAVORITE SCREENWRITERS
(Numbers below are for screenwriting categories only)
01 Woody Allen (16 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Acting and Directing races. Classics include Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan and more...
02 Billy Wilder (12 nominations and 3 wins)
He's also been in the Directing and Producing races. Classics include Sunset Blvd, The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, and more...
03 John Huston (8 nominations and 1 win)
He's also been in the Acting, Directing, and Producing races. Classics include The African Queen, The Asphalt Jungle, Prizzi's Honor and more...
04 Federico Fellini (8 nominations but he never won for writing)
He's also been in the Directing, and Producing races and of course his films have taken multiple Foreign Language Film Oscars. He's the Academy's favorite Italian... yes, even more than Sophia Loren. Classics include La Dolce Vita, I Vitelloni, 8½ and more...

It's perhaps no surprise that all of these writers are also directors and thus were in charge of bringing their own words to visual life. With greater control comes greater consistency in results. Without checking before you hit the jump can you guess which working writers are next in line to join this group?

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47 days til Oscar nominations and I'm feeling a bit morbid...

by Nathaniel R

Edith Piaf and Judy GarlandPerhaps it was those uninspired Critics Choice nominations? Perhaps it's no critical year-end love for La Pfeiffer in her comeback year? Perhaps it was my anti-depressant prescription running out with no health insurance to renew it with? Or, probably, it's the generally miserable state of the world in which things are so dire that we're watching a kleptocracy filled with proud sexual predators, treasonous pathological liars, greedy overlord billionaires, fact-averse idiots, and blatantly sociopathic racists amass power at a record pace, dooming future generations to have it much much worse than we even do now? Meanwhile the good people of the world stare in disbelief whilst fighting amongst themselves for any number of reasons but the largest, we suspect, is a feeling of impotence against the actual enemies.

But since I was feeling terrible all day whilst trying to come up with our habitual trivia fun with numbers as we countdown, I kept remembering that Judy Garland died when she was just 47. (I'm working my way to a non-morbid point after the hand-wringing...)

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The 25 Youngest Women Ever Nominated for Best Actress

by Nathaniel R

Saoirse Ronan hosting SNLTimothée Chalamet (about to turn 22) and Saoirse Ronan (23) are only a year apart in age and both are looking like major Oscar contenders in Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. In other words, it MIGHT be a really young Oscar year. Despite their close ages they're miles apart in terms of Oscar statistics. If Timothée is nominated he'll be a first time nominee and become the 3rd youngest man ever up for Best Actor while Saoirse, if nominated, would be on nomination #3 and would just barely crack the youngest 20 contenders in her category. 

So, who are the youngest female leads ever nominated?  We're about to tell you but one thing is for sure: this list is MUCH younger than the corresponding leading man list.

DISCLAIMER: The male list was comparatively easier to order as there were significant gaps in ages. With so many women roughly the same age on this list it's possible the order is not entirely accurate (given that Oscar dates are not the same each year) but we did the best we could.

I'm just a human girl person and I ain't always perfect."

JUST MISSED THE LIST: Laura Dern was 24 when Rambling Rose came out but by the time Oscar season hit she had just turned 25. When Audrey Hepburn won on her first nomination Roman Holiday (1953) and Shirley Maclaine lost for her first nomination for Some Came Running (1958) they were both about to turn 25. Jeanne Crain was another 24 year old who just missed this list with Pinky (1949). They were the closest all rans...

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92 Days til Oscar. Some Living Trivia For Ya!

Did you know the earliest Oscar year which boasts 20 acting nominees who are still with us is 1992? It's the 25th anniversary of that year and that's the furthest back in time you can go from which all the acting nominees are still walking this earth. With the very noticeable exception of long retired Gene Hackman (no one has been able to convince him to come back to the movies -- and directors have tried!) most of them are still working, too. The lesson is simple: cherish your favorite actors while they're with us because no one lasts forever... except through their art!

The nominees that year were:

Leading ACTRESS	Leading ACTOR	Supporting ACTRESS	Supporting ACTOR
Deneuve Indochine	Downey Jr Chaplin	Davis Husbands & Wives	Davidson Crying Game
McDonnell Passion Fish	Eastwood Unforgiven	Plowright Enchanted April	Hackman Unforgiven ★
Pfeiffer Love Field	Rea Crying Game	Redgrave Howards End	Nicholson A Few Good Men
Sarandon Lorenzo's Oil	Pacino Scent of a... ★	Richardson Damage	Pacino Glengarry...
Thompson Howards End ★	Washington Malcolm X	Tomei My Cousin Vinny ★	Paymer Mr Saturday Night

If you'd like a breakdown of the earliest years for the individual categories, it won't surprise you to hear two things. First, that we're offering that list since we're trivia overachievers here at TFE . Second, those categories line up exactly like average age statistics for those races i.e. lead Actress skews youngest, then Supporting Actress, then Actor, and in last place is Supporting Actor because that's the category that's most frequently enamored of veterans. Those details are after the jump...

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The 25 Youngest Men Ever Nominated for Best Actor

by Nathaniel R

Timothée Chalamet photographed by Craig McDean for Interview magazine

With the fine coming of age romantic drama Call Me By Your Name now in limited release, audiences can join critics in swooning over the revelatory work of Timothée Chalamet's as the preternaturally sophisticated but hormonally confused Elio. He won the Gotham Awards "Breakthrough" award last night. Should his incredible performance earn him an Academy nomination for Best Leading Actor, he will be the third youngest man to ever receive that honor (he turns 22 the day after Christmas)...

Only Mickey Rooney and Jackie Cooper were younger in their Oscar races and both happened in Oscar's first dozen years (!) when the Academy's habits and fetishes and aversions were still being sorted out. They quickly turned against really young actors. While many women have won Best Actress in their 20s, it's only happened once for a man. The youngest leading male winner is currently Adrien Brody who won his Oscar for The Pianist (2002) just three weeks before he turned 30.

But who are the youngest male leads ever nominated? Read on for the dewiest 25. Tell us how many you've seen and who is your favorite...

YOUNGEST LEAD ACTOR NOMINEES

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