SINGAPORE - Joker, the movie based on the comic-book villain, bagged 11 Oscar nominations on Monday (Jan 13), the most that any film garnered.
While the origin story of the anti-hero was expected to do well at the roll call, few expected a haul of this size.
It gained nods in the predicted categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix and Best Director for Todd Phillips, but also made its mark in other categories, such as in Cinematography, Original Score and Film Editing.
Overall, Hollywood once again showed that it is ruled by the major studios and insiders when it shut out films made by those outside the system.
South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who plays the wily patriarch of the poor Kim family in dark comedy Parasite, failed to secure a supporting actor nomination, despite rave reviews for his work.
Parasite is the first South Korean movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
The biggest loser of the day is the drama-comedy The Farewell, from Chinese-American film-maker Lulu Wang.
The film was tipped to do well in the major categories, including Best Picture, Best Leading Actress for Awkwafina, Best Supporting Actress for Zhao Shuzhen, Best Original Screenplay and even a dark horse chance of a Best Director nod for Wang.
The indie production failed to secure even a single nomination.
Making this more of a shock is the fact that Awkwafina just a week ago won the Golden Globe in the Best Actress - Motion Picture Comedy or Musical category.
Parasite, despite its handicap as a "foreign" film which the mostly-American Oscar voters have to follow through subtitles, made deep inroads into the major categories.
As expected, it scored nods in the Best Director, Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and International Feature Film (formerly called Best Foreign Language) categories, to which more were added, in the Production Design and Editing categories, for a total of six nominations.
Little Women, the critically-acclaimed adaptation of the classic novel, had its director Greta Gerwig shut out of the Best Director roll call. With her out, that category is now all male.
Coming after Joker's 11 nominations are The Irishman, 1917 and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, forming a three-way tie with a total 10 nods each.
The winners of the 92nd Academy Awards will be announced the night of Feb 9 in Los Angeles (Feb 10 in Singapore).
Here are the nominees in key categories:
Best picture
- Joker
- Little Women
- 1917
- Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood
- Parasite
Best director
- Bong Joon-ho - Parasite
- Todd Phillips - Joker
- Sam Mendes - 1917
- Martin Scorsese - The Irishman
- Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood
Best actor
- Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory
- Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood
- Adam Driver - Marriage Story
- Joaquin Phoenix - Joker
- Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes
Best actress
- Cynthia Erivo - Harriet
- Saoirse Ronan - Little Women
- Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
- Charlize Theron - Bombshell
- Renee Zellweger - Judy
Best supporting actor
- Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
- Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes
- Al Pacino - The Irishman
- Joe Pesci - The Irishman
- Brad Pitt - Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood
Best supporting actress
- Laura Dern - Marriage Story
- Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit
- Florence Pugh - Little Women
- Margot Robbie - Bombshell
- Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell
Best foreign language film
- Corpus Christi (Poland)
- Honeyland (North Macedonia)
- Les Miserables (France)
- Pain and Glory (Spain)
- Parasite (South Korea)
Best animated feature
- How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
- I Lost My Body
- Klaus
- Missing Link
- Toy Story 4
Best documentary feature
- American Factory
- The Cave
- The Edge of Democracy
- For Sama
- Honeyland
Best original screenplay
- Knives Out - Rian Johnson
- Marriage Story - Noah Baumbach
- 1917 - Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns
- Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino
- Parasite - Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin-won
Best adapted screenplay
- The Irishman - Steven Zaillian
- Jojo Rabbit" - Taika Waititi
- Joker - Todd Phillips & Scott Silver
- Little Women - Greta Gerwig
- The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten
Best original score
- Joker - Hildur Guonadottir
- Little Women - Alexandre Desplat
- Marriage Story - Randy Newman
- 1917 - Thomas Newman
- Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker - John Williams
Best original song
- I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away from Toy Story 4
- (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again from Rocketman
- I'm Standing With You from Breakthrough
- Into The Unknown from Frozen II
- Stand Up from Harriet
