At the 95th Academy Award nominations, surprises were everywhere.

While awards season favorites Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Banshees of Inisherin predictably led the slate of contenders with 11 and 9 nominations, respectively, the live announcement show led to many gasps — both in terms of who made the cut and who didn’t. (See full list of nominations below)

Starting with the snubs (and there were many), the most glaring was James Cameron‘s omission from the Best Director list for his mammoth (and mammothly successful) undertaking of Avatar: The Way of Water. In addition, the two most prominent African-American acting possibilities — Viola Davis for The Woman King and Danielle Deadwyler for Till — were denied nominations for Best Actress.

The Woman King was hoping for multiple nominations in other categories as well (from Best Picture to several artisan awards) but was entirely shut out. Nope, another prominent film with African-American themes (from Get Out Oscar-winner Jordan Peele), was also ignored with 0 nominations.

Top Gun: Maverick was absent from key races as well. Yes, it garnered a respectable 6 nominations including Best Picture (and even a surprise Best Adapted Screenplay nod), but with no nominations for Tom Cruise as Best Actor, Joseph Kosinski for Best Director and, in the biggest shocker, no nomination for Best Cinematography (a category it was favored to win), the Academy clearly showed that it still has a snobby bias against blockbuster popcorn fare.

Avatar: The Way of Water also fell victim to this slight. Despite having become only the sixth movie ever to make $2 billion worldwide, it only mustered 4 nominations, settling (like Maverick did, after being 2022’s biggest domestic money-maker) for 3 requisite tech nominations along with Best Picture. Nevertheless, the nominations for both films marks the first time that two sequels have competed for Best Picture in the same year. (Having 10 nominees sure helps.)

And then there were surprises, none bigger than dark horse bombshell Best Actress nominee Andrea Riseborough; she was granted the nod for her small indie drama To Leslie. While it’s one of the most unlikely nominees of recent memory (given how Riseborough hadn’t registered any recognition all awards season), the breakthrough didn’t come out of nowhere. During the nomination phase, many actors in the Hollywood community began to rally on Twitter for Riseborough. Long shot though she was, the campaigning worked and she is now an Oscar nominee.

Although Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler were the actresses most likely penalized for Riseborough’s upset appearance, Brian Tyree Henry was granted a surprise of his own when his name was called in the Best Supporting Actor category for his turn in AppleTV+’s Jennifer Lawrence drama Causeway.

Henry, an African-American actor, is one of six People of Color who secured acting nominations, joining Supporting Actress nominees Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Hong Chau (The Whale), and three nominees from Everything Everywhere All At Once: Michelle Yeoh (Actress), Ke Huy Quan (Supporting Actor), and Stephanie Hsu (Supporting Actress). EEAAO‘s Jamie Lee Curtis is also competing for Supporting Actress with the first Oscar nomination of her legendary career.

The four acting nominations for Asian actors marks the most ever by the Academy in a single year.

The Best Actor race has a dark horse of its own: Paul Mescal, the Irish thespian who was nominated for his role in the critically-praised father/daughter portrait Aftersun. Mescal bested other big name A-listers like Tom Hanks (A Man Called Otto), Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick), and Hugh Jackman (The Son).

Notably, Bassett becomes the first performer from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to receive an acting nomination from the Academy, a barrier that DC has broken before with nominations and wins.

As an interesting historical footnote, this marks the first time since 1934 that the Best Actor category is made up entirely of first-time nominees. The last time this occurred was 87 years ago when there were only three nominees: winner Clark Gable (It Happened One Night), Frank Morgan (The Affairs of Cellini) and William Powell (The Thin Man).

Another breakthrough was the German war epic All Quiet on the Western Front; it hauled in 9 nominations including Best Picture. Though it lacks star power, the massive production had been gathering steam through the awards season, fueled especially by a slew of nominations from BAFTA, the British Film Academy, whose membership holds many from the Hollywood Academy as well. The fact that All Quiet is streaming on Netflix also helped its exposure.

While it couldn’t quite squeeze in a deserving nomination for Best Director Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front becomes the major foreign language contender that India’s RRR had been hoping to be, and it will likely win Best International Feature Film. 

All Quiet on the Western Front is the third remake of a previous Best Picture winner to also be nominated for the top prize. This version follows the winner from 1930. The other remake nominees were 1962’s Mutiny on the Bounty (the original won in 1935) and 2021’s West Side Story (the original won in 1961).

Back in the realm of snubs, the progressive sensitivities of many Oscar followers were stung several times as nominations were revealed. Along with the actress omissions of Davis and Deadwyler, key female contenders came up short in major categories. Sarah Polley (Women Talking), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King) and Maria Schrader (She Said) were left out of the Best Director race, and Women Talking‘s composer Hildur Guðnadóttir was also denied a nomination for Best Original Score.

Lest people take that to mean the current Academy is misogynistic, it’s worth noting that two of the past three Best Director winners were women (Chloe Zhao for Nomadland and Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog).

The eight-women ensemble of Women Talking was also shut out, although the film did gather two nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Baz Luhrmann (Elvis) and Damien Chazelle (Babylon) were also notable snubs for Best Director, with Swedish helmer Ruben Östlund sneaking in for his English-language debut Triangle of Sadness. It’s a cineaste preference for the most high-brow branch of the Academy.

Elsewhere, Paul Dano (The Fabelmans) and Brad Pitt (Babylon) missed out on Supporting Actor nominations (the Dano diss is particularly surprising), and South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook‘s lauded drama Decision To Leave was inexplicably left out of the International Feature and Original Screenplay races.

Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans (winner of Best Picture / Drama and Director at the Golden Globes) secured a solid 7 nominations including Best Picture, Director, Actress (Michelle Williams), Original Screenplay and Score, even as it was left out of other categories that it was expecting to compete in, namely Cinematography and Editing.

For Spielberg, he becomes the third-most nominated person ever as Best Director, elevating him past the legendary Billy Wilder. Spielberg now has 9 Directing nominations over six decades (he’s won twice, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan), tying him with Martin Scorsese. They both trail William Wyler who had 15 over four decades.

Another Spielberg Oscar record: The Fabelmans is his 13th film to be nominated for Best Picture, the most ever for a director. That ties the aforementioned William Wyler.

It’s also the second time in Spielberg’s career that he’s been nominated in back-to-back years. His Fabelmans nod follows 2021’s directing nomination for West Side Story, and that tandem joins Spielberg’s consecutive streak in 1981 and 1982 for Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

This year, Spielberg is also nominated for Best Picture as a producer and Best Original Screenplay for co-writing his semiautobiographical The Fabelmans with Tony Kushner. That raises Spielberg’s lifetime total of Academy Award nominations to 22.

Spielberg’s most famous collaborator John Williams notched his 53rd nomination at the age of 90 for his Fabelmans score. This further secures Williams’ status as the most-nominated composer ever and most-nominated living person.

Judd Hirsch, nominated for Best Supporting Actor in The Fabelmans, set a new record for the longest gap between acting nominations. It’s been 42 years since Hirsch’s previous nod (also for Supporting Actor) in 1980’s Ordinary People. That nudges past the previous record gap set by Henry Fonda, who had to wait 41 years after his 1940 Best Actor nomination for The Grapes of Wrath. He wasn’t nominated again until 1981 (for the same award) for On Golden Pond, for which he finally won just 4 1/2 months before his death. (Fonda’s only other nomination across those four decades was in 1957 for Best Picture, as a producer of 12 Angry Men.)

So who are the early favorites?

For Best Picture, Everything Everywhere All At Once will be battling it out with The Banshees of Inisherin. It’s a close race as both films enter the official Oscar marathon with strong momentum. The coming weeks of industry guild awards should clarify which film is trending more.

Banshees and EEAAO directors Martin McDonagh and The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) will also be duking it out for Best Director (where The Daniels are slight early favorites) and Best Original Screenplay, with Spielberg serving as a possible upset in both categories.

It’s a three-way race for Best Actor: Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Austin Butler (Elvis), and Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin). The early edge goes to Fraser but that could shift. Best Actress will come down to two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett (TÁR) and first-time nominee Michelle Yeoh (EEAAO). In the Supporting categories, Angela Bassett (Wakanda Forever) and Ke Huy Quan (EEAAO) appear to be locks.

While streaming platforms had been gaining momentum in recent years — crescendoing last year when AppleTV+ became the first streamer ever to win Best Picture with CODA — they were pushed out by theatricals in 2022. The closest thing to a streaming title having success this year is All Quiet on the Western Front, but that’s simply because its major U.S. platform has been Netflix. However, Netflix didn’t produce the epic WWI German film, it simply garnered the rights to it.

Netflix’s two biggest Best Picture hopefuls that it actually developed and financed — Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio — both failed to make the Academy’s Top 10 , and both were denied Original Score nominations as well despite being strong contenders with respective composers Nathan Johnson and Alexandre Desplat. However, GDT’s Pinocchio will likely win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (a category where Minions: The Rise of Gru was denied a nomination despite being the year’s biggest animated grosser).

In the For What It’s Worth category, Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams did a wonderful job as the hosts of the live nomination announcements. They provided a classy, chill vibe with dry humor to a proceeding that is often amped up with forced jokey schtick and / or excessive gushing. Their approach would be welcome on Oscar night, too, although the Academy has re-enlisted old reliable Jimmy Kimmel from the ABC stable.

And on a final note: the Academy’s return to 10 guaranteed Best Picture nominees (a shift from its previous policy of “up to 10”) showed that its membership was apparently straining to fill out that requirement. Art house Cannes winner Triangle of Sadness and #MeToo-themed period piece Women Talking brought up the rear with (respectively) 3 nominations and 2 nominations. If the Academy had maintained its “up to 10” metric, both films likely would’ve been left out (and perhaps rightfully so, at least, from a competitive perspective).

Oddly, both dramas made cut while Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale didn’t. The polarizing drama starring Brendan Fraser (about a morbidly obese man suffering a life crisis) tallied three nominations — Best Actor / Fraser, Supporting Actress / Chau, Best Makeup & Hair Design — to lead all non-Best Picture nominees (tied with Babylon; Score, Production Design, Costumes).

Even so, the Academy likely considers the policy change a win since it also likely boosted Avatar: The Way of Water into the Best Picture race despite only mustering three other nominations in tech categories (Visual Effects, Sound, and Production Design).

The 95th Annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday night March 12, 2022, at 8pm EST / 7pm CST at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California.

The Nominees for
THE 95th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

BEST PICTURE

• All Quiet on the Western Front (9 nominations)
• Avatar: The Way of Water (4 nominations)
• The Banshees of Inisherin (9 nominations)
• Elvis (8 nominations)
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (11 nominations)
• The Fabelmans (7 nominations)
• TÁR (6 nominations)
• Top Gun: Maverick (6 nominations)
• Triangle of Sadness (3 nominations)
• Women Talking (2 nominations)

Notable Omissions: Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, RRR, The Woman King, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Whale

BEST DIRECTOR

• Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
• Todd Field, TÁR
• Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

Notable Omissions: James Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water, Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Baz Luhrmann (Elvis), Damien Chazelle (Babylon), Sarah Polley (Women Talking), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King), Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), S. S. Rajamouli (RRR)

BEST ACTOR

• Austin Butler, Elvis
• Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Brendan Fraser, The Whale
• Paul Mescal, Aftersun
• Bill Nighy, Living

Notable Omissions: Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick), Hugh Jackman (The Son), Adam Sandler, (Hustle), Tom Hanks, A Man Called Otto

BEST ACTRESS

• Cate Blanchett, TÁR
• Ana De Armas, Blonde
• Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
• Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
• Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Notable Omissions: Viola Davis (The Woman King), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Olivia Colman (Empire of Light), Margot Robbie (Babylon), Emma Thompson (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande), Rooney Mara (Women Talking)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway
• Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans
• Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Notable Omissions: Paul Dano (The Fabelmans), Brad Pitt (Babylon), Tom Hanks (Elvis), Ben Whishaw (Women Talking), Woody Harrelson (Triangle of Sadness) 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Hong Chau, The Whale
• Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
• Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All At Once

Notable Omissions: Carey Mulligan, She Said, Jessie Buckley (Women Talking), Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness), Nina Hoss (TÁR), Janelle Monáe (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh
• Everything Everywhere All At Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
• The Fabelmans, Tony Kushner & Steven Spielberg
• TÁR, Todd Field
• Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund

Notable Omissions: Babylon, Elvis, Decision to Leave, The Menu

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson
• Living, Kazuo Ishiguro
• Top Gun: Maverick, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie
• Women Talking, Sarah Polley and Miriam Toews

Notable Omissions: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, She Said

BEST ANIMATED FILM

• Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
• Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• The Sea Beast
• Turning Red

Notable Omission: Minions: The Rise of Gru, Inu-Oh, Wendell & Wild, Lightyear, Strange World

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

• All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)
• Argentina, 1985 (Argentina)
• Close (Belgium)
• EO (Poland)
• The Quiet Girl (Ireland)

Notable Omissions: Decision to Leave (South Korea), Corsage (Austria), Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Mexico), Holy Spider (Denmark), Saint Omer (France), Joyland (Pakistan)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• All That Breathes
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Fire of Love
• A House Made of Splinters
• Navalny

Notable Omissions: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, Retrograde, Bad Axe, Moonage Daydream, Descendant, The Territory

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• All Quiet on the Western Front, Volker Bertelmann
• Babylon, Justin Hurwitz
• The Banshees of Inisherin, Carter Burwell
• Everything Everywhere All At Once, Son Lux
• The Fabelmans, John Williams

Notable Omissions: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Alexandre Desplat), The Woman King (Terence Blanchard), Avatar: The Way of Water (Simon Franglen), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Nathan Johnson), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ludwig Göransson), Women Talking (Hildur Guðnadóttir)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• “Applause” (Tell It Like a Woman), Diane Warren
• “Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick), Lady Gaga and Bloodpop
• “Lift Me Up” (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson
• “Naatu Naatu” (RRR), M. M. Keeravani and Chandrabose
• “This Is A Life” (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski

Notable Omission: “Ciao Papa” (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), “Good Afternoon” (Spirited), “New Body Rhumba” (White Noise), “Carolina” (Where the Crawdads Sing) “Nothing Is Lost” (Avatar: The Way of Water)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

• The Elephant Whisperers
• Haulout
• How Do You Measure a Year?
• The Martha Mitchell Effect
• Stranger at the Gate

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

• An Irish Goodbye
• Ivalu
• Le Pupille
• Night Ride
• The Red Suitcase

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
• The Flying Sailor
• Ice Merchants
• My Year of Dicks
• An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• All Quiet on the Western Front, James Friend
• Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Darius Khondji
• Elvis, Mandy Walker
• Empire of Light, Roger Deakins
• TÁR, Florian Hoffmeister

Notable Omissions: Top Gun: Maverick (Claudio Miranda), The Fabelmans (Janusz Kamiński), Avatar: The Way of Water, Russell Carpenter, The Banshees of Inisherin (Ben Davis), The Batman (Greig Fraser), Nope (Hoyte van Hoytema), Babylon (Linus Sandgren)

BEST FILM EDITING

• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Elvis
• Everything Everywhere All At Once
• TÁR
• Top Gun: Maverick

Notable Omissions: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Fabelmans, The Woman King, Babylon, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Babylon
• Elvis
• The Fabelmans

Notable Omission: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, Don’t Worry Darling, The Woman King, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Babylon
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Elvis
• Everywhere All At Once
• Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Notable Omissions: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The Woman King, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Don’t Worry Darling 

BEST MAKEUP & HAIR DESIGN

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• The Batman
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Elvis
• The Whale

Notable Omissions: Amsterdam, Blonde, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

BEST SOUND

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Batman
• Elvis
• Top Gun: Maverick

Notable Omissions: Babylon, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Everything Everywhere All At Once

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Batman
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Top Gun: Maverick

Notable Omissions: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Thirteen Lives, Nope, Jurassic World Dominion

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Click on links below for other major Critics Group Awards and Guild Nominees that have been announced so far for the 2022 / 23 season:

Producers Guild of America Nominees
Directors Guild of America Nominees
Screen Actors Guild Nominees
Golden Globe Winners
Chicago Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
American Film Institute Top 10 Films of 2022
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Circle