Ranking Roger Deakins' Oscar Nominations

by Cláudio Alves

Roger Deakins on the set of EMPIRE OF LIGHT | © Searchlight Pictures

Since two categories merged into one, no director of photography has amassed as many Oscar nominations as Roger Deakins. The British cinematographer earned his 16th nod this year for Sam Mendes' Empire of Light, having previously won for 1917 and Blade Runner 2049. His career spans continents and six decades, encompassing projects as varied as a Marvin Gaye video clip and pioneering work in animated cinema. What started as an early interest in the possibilities of digital filmmaking has turned into a veritable pursuit of innovation, bringing classic technique to virtual spaces. A visionary, a pioneer, a living legend, Roger Deakins is one of a kind.

To celebrate the master, let's look back at his many Oscar nominations, ranking them along the way. After all, in times of awards fever, everyone loves a good list…

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Oscar Stat Fun - No Sweeps in the Modern Era but can "EEAAO" change that?

by Nathaniel R

That complete sweep at the Spirits and SAG has us wondering now whether or not Everything Everywhere All At Once will win Best Picture but how many statues in total can actually win. We haven't seen a sweeper at the Oscars in a long long time. Yes some films have won all their categories but they aren't true "sweepers" i.e. thoroughly dominant movies. It would be technically accurate, for example, to say that CODA performed a clean sweep last season. It did win all of its categories but it wasn't a sweeper in any meaningful sense since it was only up for 3 Oscars.

In fact, a big sweep hasn't yet happened in the expanded Best Picture era!  Can Everything Everywhere All At Once change that? Let's look at the history and stats after the jump...

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Oscar Volley: Best Original Screenplay...the "alternative Best Picture" award?

Team Experience is teaming up to discuss each Oscar category. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Elisa Giudici...

TÁR in the act of creation

MARK: Hello, hello! Get a look at the Best Original Screenplay nominees this year—all five are also Best Picture Oscar nominees. Now of course this isn’t unprecedented, namely in the modern era of (up to) 10 Best Picture nominees, but it *is* unusual. (2020 was the other year this complete overlap occurred.) Typically we’ll get at least one inspired, left-field choice in Best Original Screenplay (think Bridesmaids, The Lobster, Nightcrawler, etc.). Not this year, unfortunately.

So where does this leave us? With a pretty sterling lineup of nominees overall! Among the five—The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Triangle of Sadness—which strike you as the real deal this year?

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Oscar Volley: Best Actress

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Baby Clyde and Juan Carlos Ojano discussing Best Actress.

CARLOS: A two-time Oscar winner gunning for her third, a rising star playing a Hollywood legend in a highly divisive film, a character actress getting an overdue recognition, a recurring nominee playing Steven Spielberg's mother, and an international star in the role of a lifetime in the Best Picture frontrunner. It's quite an exciting mix of actresses plucked from a highly competitive field.

But we would be remiss if we don't address the elephant in the room, to just get it out of the way...

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Film Bitch Awards - Best Actor (and more)

by Nathaniel R

Though all of us have our differences of opinion with Oscar, but sometimes the stars align and we get an Oscar lineup we adore. I'm quite fond of Oscar's Best Actor list this year (have you voted today?) to the extent that my own ballot is 80% similar. That happens about once a decade (the last time was 2016). The one difference is my inclusion of Franz Rogowski, one of Europe's greatest actors, for the Austrian prison drama Great Freedom. It was an Oscar finalist last Oscar season in Best International Feature but wasn't nominated and then got a small US theatrical release in 2022. So while the film is now "old" (haha) it's been impossible to shake for over a year now. Thanks in large part to Rogowski's work. He outdoes himself with this portrait of a man so implacably committed to his own desires that you begin to wonder where the prison walls truly are. In short: he sells that alarming challenge of an ending.

Click on over to the awards to see the reasoning behind the rest of the ballot and the list of finalists and semi-finalists  which includes a lot of performance that Oscar would not have deigned to look twice at. It was a strong year for rising actors but Oscar generally likes their contenders already famous and well into their leading man years.

As a bonus, the "Best Actor in a Limited Role or Cameo" is also posted for your pleasure or scorn depending on your feelings for these performances. This time there's an actual Oscar nominee present since Judd Hirsch took a spot in Supporting Actor with the Academy. Love that for him as he packs such a punch in his two scenes. The other honorees are Tyler Merritt, David Lynch, Louis-do de Lencquesaing, and Julian Glover.