A Year of Movie Magic: The 2022 Oscar Nominations

The crown jewel of Hollywood’s film awards is just around the corner! The 94^th annual Academy Awards is set to air on March 27, 2022. The Oscars will take place in person with capacity restrictions as well as vaccination and testing requirements. The ceremony will return to its traditional home at the Dolby Theatre after its brief departure to Union Station in Los Angeles last year. After being host-less since 2018, this year’s ceremony will feature powerhouse female comedians Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes.

In anticipation of the Oscars, nominations for the coveted awards were announced on February 8, 2022 and the competition is fierce. The Oscars is always a star-studded affair celebrating a year of filmmaking across 23 categories, such as Best Picture, Best Original Score and Best Hair and Makeup. For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the “Academy”) introduced a new “Fan Favourite” category to be decided by a public vote. Movie fans can vote for their favourite film using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite on Twitter or by casting a ballot on the Oscar’s website. The winner will be announced live at the event! However, if you are reading this in Canada you will unfortunately not be able to participate, as voting is restricted to U.S. residents. To our American readers, voting closes March 3, 2022, so don’t forget to get your votes in.

This year, The Power of the Dog leads with a total of 12 nominations, followed by Dune, West Side Story and Belfast. All these films have been critically acclaimed in the industry receiving high praise for their performance, stories and artistic direction. Kenneth Branagh’s historical drama Belfast is expected to win the prestigious Best Picture award given its previous nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Screen Actors Guild, Director’s Guild of America and Producers Guild of America. In fact, Belfast won the Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award, which has a track record of aligning with Best Picture nominees and winners.

It goes without saying that during these award ceremonies, anything can happen. It is nearly impossible to accurately predict which nominees will succeed given the opaque voting criteria of the Academy. Sometimes, though, previous award shows can provide helpful insight regarding what to expect at the Oscars. In case you missed it, we recently covered the Golden Globe Awards, which were held live via Twitter. Many Golden Globe winners have also been nominated for an Oscar.  

While it is anybody’s guess as to which nominees will transform into winners, one thing is certain: these films truly capture the movie magic of 2021.  

Below is a full list of this year’s Oscar nominees:

Best Picture

Belfast | CODA | Don’t Look Up | Drive My Car | Dune | King Richard | Licorice Pizza | Nightmare Alley | The Power of the Dog | West Side Story

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza) | Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) | Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) | Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive my Car) | Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) | Olivia Coleman (The Lost Daughter) | Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) | Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos) | Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

Best Actor

Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos) | Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog) | Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick…Boom!) | Will Smith (King Richard) | Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) | Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) | Judi Dench (Belfast) | Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog) | Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

Best Supporting Actor

Ciaran Hinds (Belfast) | Troy Kotsur (CODA) | Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog) | J.K. Simmons (Being the Ricardos) | Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)

Best Costume Design

Cruella (Jenny Beavan) | Cyrano (Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran) | Dune (Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan) | Nightmare Alley (Luis Sequeira) | West Side Story (Paul Tazewell)

Best Sound

Belfast (Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather and Niv Adiri)| Dune (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett) | No Time to Die (Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey and Mark Taylor) | The Power of the Dog (Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb) | West Side Story (Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstron, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy)

Best Original Score

Don’t Look Up (Nicholas Britell) | Dune (Hans Zimmer) | Encanto (Germaine Franco) | Parallel Mothers (Alberto Iglesias) | The Power of the Dog (Jonny Greenwood)

Best Adapted Screenplay

CODA (Sian Heder) | Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe) | Dune (Jon Spaihts, Dennis Villeneuve and Eric Roth) | The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal)| The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)

Best Original Screenplay

Belfast (Kenneth Branagh) | Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay and David Sirota) | King Richard (Zach Baylin) | Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson) | The Worst Person in the World (Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier)

Best Animated Short

Affairs of the Art | Bestia | Boxballet | Robin Robin | The Windshield Wiper

Best Live-Action Short

Ala Kachuu – Take and Run | The Dress | The Long Goodbye | On My Mind | Please Hold

Best Film Editing

Don’t Look Up (Hank Corwin) | Dune (Joe Walker) | King Richard (Pamela Martin) | The Power of the Dog (Peter Sciberras) | Tick, Tick…Boom! (Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Coming 2 America (Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer) | Cruella (Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon) | Dune (Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr) | The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh) | House of Gucci (Goran Lundstrom, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras)

Best Animated Feature

Encanto | Flee | Luca | The Mitchells vs. the Machines | Raya and the Last Dragon

Best Documentary Feature

Ascension | Attica | Flee | Summer of Soul | Writing with Fire

Best Documentary Short

Audible | Lead Me Home | The Queen of Basketball | Three Songs for Benazir | When We Were Bullies

Best Original Song

“Be Alive” — music and lyrics by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (King Richard)

| “Dos Oruguitas” — music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto) | “Down to Joy” — music and lyrics by Van Morrison (Belfast) | “No Time to Die” — music and lyrics by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (No Time to Die) | “Somehow You Do” — music and lyrics by Diane Warren (Four Good Days)

Best Cinematography

Dune (Greig Fraser) | Nightmare Alley (Dan Laustsen) | The Power of the Dog (Ari Wegner) | The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bruno Delbonnel) | West Side Story (Janusz Kaminski)

Best International Feature

Drive My Car | Flee | The Hand of God | Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom | The Worst Person in the World

Best Production Design

Dune (production design: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos) | Nightmare Alley (production design: Tamara Deverell; set decoration: Shane Vieau) | The Power of the Dog (production design: Grant Major; set decoration: Amber Richards) | The Tragedy of Macbeth (production design: Stefan Dechant; set decoration: Nancy Haigh) | West Side Story (production design: Adam Stockhausen; set decoration: Rena DeAngelo)

Best Visual Effects

Dune (Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer) | Free Guy (Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick) | No Time to Die (Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould) | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver) | Spider-Man: No Way Home (Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick)