The Oscars shortlists are getting longer.
I’m not talking about the size of the lists themselves, although it is true that the Best Original Score shortlist was expanded from 15 to 20 scores last year, and will remain at the larger figure this year. I’m really talking about the number of shortlists, which over the course of the last decade has grown from nine to 10 to, this year, an even dozen.
Voting is now underway and will run through Friday in these 12 categories: Best Documentary Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best International Feature Film, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Animated Short and Best Live Action Short, which have used shortlists for some time; Best Sound, which joined the roster of shortlisted categories after the sound mixing and editing categories were merged in 2020; Best Cinematography, which will use a two-step nominating process for the first time this year; and Best Casting, a brand new category that will be given out for the first time at the 98th Oscars in March.
You can argue about whether the shortlists can give a boost to dark horses or if they mostly reinforce favorites, and the arguments have gotten more heated over the past few years as changes in the rules have taken place.
For instance, both the Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film categories used to ask voters to watch a certain number of films and score them on a scale of 6 to 10. That method put films that were seen by fewer voters on the same footing with ones that were more widely seen, because the rankings were based on average score rather than number of votes. In the international category, the voters’ top choices were augmented by three additional films picked by an executive committee, which was deputized to select movies that might have been more challenging than the voters’ selections.
But for the last several years, the scoring systems have been discarded. Voters in documentary and international are still assigned a group of contenders that are required viewing, but they’re allowed to see as many other films as they like, and the films that get the most votes under the Academy’s ranked-choice system make the shortlist. In the international category in particular, the change has dramatically cut down on the number of surprises; most years, the films that get the most attention and are seen by the most voters are the ones that advance.
With that in mind, let’s look at five of the shortlist categories with an eye to the possibility of surprises.
Documentary Feature Film
Judging by the other doc awards, the films with the best shot of advancing are “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” “The Perfect Neighbor,” “Cover-Up,” “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” “Apocalypse in the Tropics,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” “Orwell: 2+2=5” and “The Tale of Silyan,” with other contenders including “The Alabama Solution,” “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions,” “Deaf President Now!,” “Mistress Dispeller,” “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” “Seeds,” “My Mom Jayne” and “My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow.”
But with 201 features eligible to be nominated and every voter assigned to see at least 20 of them, it’s hard to imagine that a couple of things not on that list won’t slip in. In the past, the surprise choices have sometimes come from the pop-culture realm (which this year could mean something like “One to One: John & Yoko” or “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley”) or particularly from international filmmakers (with this year’s copious possibilities including “Below the Clouds” and “Cutting Through Rocks”).
International Feature Film
One big question: How much Neon on the shortlist? The indie distributor has five films in the race this year – “It Was Just an Accident” (France), “Sentimental Value” (Norway), “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), “Sirāt” (Spain) and “No Other Choice” (South Korea) – and it’s likely that all five will make the shortlist.
Other high-profile entries that seem to be in good shape are Tunisia’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Argentina’s “Belén,” Germany’s “Sound of Falling,” Japan’s “Kokohu,” Jordan’s “All That’s Left of You” and Switzerland’s “Late Shift.” And while it’s likely that the remainder of the list will be filled out by offerings from Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, India, Italy, Israel or Slovakia, it’s possible that a surprise or two could sneak in if there’s a little movie beloved by voters – i.e., Thailand’s “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” last year.
Original Song
Watch out, high-profile aspiring nominees: The Academy’s Music Branch loves to leave big stars off the shortlist. That doesn’t mean that Miley Cyrus will definitely be snubbed for her song from “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” or Ed Sheeran for “F1” or Shakira for “Zootopia 2,” but it is a habit of the branch’s.
On the other hand, the voters like songs that they can see performed onscreen, since the Academy Screening Room devoted to the category has three-minute clips of all 68 eligible songs as they’re used in the films. That’s good news for the songs from “Sinners,” “Wicked: For Good,” “KPop Demon Hunters” and, hopefully, “The Ballad of Wallis Island,” and mixed news for “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which has lots of on-screen song performances of ineligible Shaker hymns, but has its best shot at a nomination, “Clothed by the Sun,” over the end credits. In “Train Dreams,” Nick Cave has a song in the credits, too, and one can only hope the lack of visual accompaniment won’t hurt him.
By the way, little-seen Asian movies that submit multiple songs – I’m looking at you, “Scarlet” and “Yolo” (three submissions each) and “Paro (The Untold Story of Bride Slavery”) – never make it to the shortlist, period. (“RRR” was an entirely different story). But they keep submitting.
And finally, 15-time nominee and Honorary Oscar winner Diane Warren is on the list of eligible songs with “Dear Me” from the documentary about her, “Diane Warren: Relentless.” In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it’s folly to think she won’t make it to the shortlist and beyond.
Original Score
In the seven years since the shortlist returned to the score category, 16 composers have made the list at least three times, and 10 of them are in the running again this year: five-time shortlistees Nicholas Britell and Alexandre Desplat with “Jay Kelly” for Britell and “Frankenstein” and “Jurassic World Rebirth” for Desplat; four-timers Ludwig Goransson and Daniel Pemberton with “Sinners” for Goransson and “The Bad Guys 2,” “Materialists” and “Eddington” for Pemberton; and three timers Volker Bertelmann (“A House of Dynamite” and “Ballad of a Small Player”), Carter Burwell (“Good Fortune” and “Honey Don’t”), Alan Silvestri (“The Electric State”), Hans Zimmer (“F1”) and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (“Tron: Ares”).
Other likely contenders include Bryce Dessner for “Train Dreams,” reigning winner Daniel Blumberg for “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Max Richter for “Hamnet,” Jerskin Fendrix for “Bugonia,” Daniel Lopatin for “Marty Supreme” and John Powell and Stephen Schwartz for “Wicked: For Good.”
One thing to watch for: scores by female composers making the list. While the branch has only nominated three women in the last five years, they’ve shortlisted 11. Last year was particularly noteworthy, with shortlist spots going to Chandra Dancy for “Blink Twice,” Tamar-kali for “The Fire Inside,” Andrea Datzman for “Inside Out 2” and Amelia Warner for “Young Woman and the Sea.”
Female composers in the running this year include Hildur Guðnadóttir for “Hedda” (no surprise at all if she makes the shortlist), Laura Karpman for “Captain America: Brave New World,” Lesley Barber for “Diane Warren: Relentless,” Isabella Summers for “Dust Bunny,” Amie Doherty for “Freakier Friday,” Emily Wells for “Plainclothes,” Kathryn Bostic for “Sarah’s Oil” and Nala Sinephro for “The Smashing Machine.”
Casting
It’s hard to say if there will be surprises in this new category, because there’s no precedent for what an unsurprising outcome would be.
The films that are likely Best Picture nominees would make sense in the category, so “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” “Hamnet,” “Train Dreams,” “Marty Supreme,” “Jay Kelly” and “Sentimental Value” and maybe even “It Was Just an Accident” would seem reasonable. But then the questions start.
Will “Frankenstein,” “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” seem to be feats of production over casting?
Will “A House of Dynamite” and “Wake Up Dead Man” get a boost because of the size of their ensembles?
Does the Academy’s smallest branch, the Casting Directors Branch, have enough international members to give a boost to films like “No Other Choice” and “The Secret Agent?”
Do little movies like “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” “Sorry, Baby” and “Blue Moon” have a shot?
At this point, we don’t know. They’re inventing this category in front of us, so surprises are likely.
