Almost There: Danielle Deadwyler in "Till"

by Cláudio Alves

The Oscars are less than a month away, but our collective hearts still ache for those who the Academy snubbed. Indeed, you showed up in force when asked to vote on which unnominated performance deserved a complete analysis. The two definitive winners were Danielle Deadwyler and Dolly De Leon, who, when combined, won 58% of the total of over 800 votes. We'll get to the Triangle of Sadness shipwreck survivor closer to the ceremony, but first, let's consider the lead of Chinonye Chukwu's sophomore feature. Playing Mamie Till Mobley, Deadwyler delivers a powerhouse performance tasked with sustaining a historical narrative so painful it's sometimes hard to watch…

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Lists! Acting Nominees by the numbers

The Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor Charts are all updated with 'who should win' polls (vote daily) and trivia. Here's a silly little breakdown of "extra" numbers stuff from the four acting categories including a very "fiery" Zodiac coincidence. 

Brendan Fraser in "The Whale"

ACTING NOMINEES BY THE NUMBERS...

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Vote on Best Actress. (Plus 'How'd they get nominated?')

The Best Actress chart is fully updated for your viewing pleasure with details, stats, and trivia. Here's one curio trivia bit. We believe that this is only the second time in history when all five Best Actress nominees are from different countries! (Usually it's some combo of Americans, Brits, and Aussies). All that plus our semi-annual "How'd They Get Nominated?" breakdown. Before anyone takes offense at the guesstimate percentages (it's all in good fun) please note that these are NOT performance critiques. A truth: You can give the most brilliant performance of all time and still be nominated for other reasons entirely. Awards races, Oscar and otherwise, are meritocracies only in the utopian ideal sense; People are people (including, thus, all voting bodies be they fans, high brow critics, or Academy members) and their reasons for voting in any given way are multiple and varied and heavily influenced by all sorts of things. Plus, it's all subjective too!

Adrien Brody & Ana de Armas in "Blonde" (Netflix)

Let's start with Ana de Armas in Blonde for an example. How'd she get nominated?

67% Role. Awards bodies have always loved Marilyn portrayals which have led to Emmy, Oscar, and Tony nods for various actresses across multiple decades (though not wins curiously enough).
20% Performance. Even people who didn't love the movie admired her work in it.
6% Globe nomination / ceremony shout-outs revived interest in a crowded race.
5% Knives Out + No Time To Die = rapidly ascending stardom (Big stars have a built in advantage in popularity contests) 
2% Early traction! That September release struck while the iron was hot from Venice festival buzz. Blonde was widely seen (via Netflix) before all but one of the major competitors for the nomination arrived (Michelle Yeoh was the exception).

The other four breakdowns are on the Best Actress page where you can vote daily in the "Who SHOULD win?" poll. 

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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Almost There: Class of 2022

by Cláudio Alves 

The Oscar nominations have been announced, and, while some celebrate, others commiserate. The word snub is getting its yearly workout, though it's easy to see why it's on the tip of everybody's tongue. This was a hard-to-predict year full of volatile lineups, not to mention a couple of dark horses crashing the party after most had considered them over. Grassroots campaigns won out while the precursors' importance keeps dwindling, and first-time nominees are more numerous than they've been in decades. Amid the chaos, it's time to fulfill an annual tradition here at The Film Experience, honoring those performances that probably came close to Oscar gold but missed the ballot at the last moment. Without further ado, let's give a warm welcome to the Almost There class of 2022…

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