The 2022 Oscars are coming, and now that the nominations have been announced, we get to think about the movies that are most likely to take home gold statuettes in March. BELFAST, DUNE, WEST SIDE STORY, and many more are among the top Oscar contenders this year.
Even better, we've also got the best way for you to see all the biggest Oscar-nominated movies on the big screen: Oscar Movie Week! Passes for the entire week of movies will be on sale soon; get more info just below. But first, let's look at what we know about the 2022 Oscars!
When are the Oscars?
The 2022 Oscars take place on March 27, 2022. The ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, which has been the venue for the Oscars since it opened in 2001. (The theatre was originally called the Kodak Theatre, but it became the Dolby in 2012.)
Who votes for the Oscars?
The Oscars are voted on by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There are almost ten thousand members of the Academy, which is divided into 17 branches. Members of each branch (actors, cinematographers, directors, editors, etc.) submit nominations for their own craft. (Three branches don't get awards: Casting directors, executives, and marketing.) Once the nominations are set, all members get to vote on all the nominees.
How are the Oscars predicted by other awards?
Look at it this way: Members of the acting branch of the Academy are almost certainly members of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG). So those members cast similar votes for both the SAG Awards and the Oscars. The main difference is that the guild awards tend to have a lot more varied categories than the Oscars do. So nominees tend to be funneled down to the biggest and/or most notable names.
The biggest indicators for likely Oscar nominations and winners are the big guild awards: SAG (Screen Actor's Guild), WGA (Writer's Guild), DGA (Director's Guild) and PGA (Producer's Guild). In fact, the PGA Best Theatrical Motion Picture winner is almost always the strongest contender for Best Picture at the Oscars.
Since the PGA Awards began in 1990, 22 of the 33 winners went on to win Best Picture. The others were all nominated for the big Oscars, and at this point, the slate of PGA nominations often becomes the nominated Oscar slate, too. (If you're doing math based on the above, yes, it's a bit wonky, because in 2014 the PGA awarded its top prize as a tie between GRAVITY and 12 YEARS A SLAVE, the latter of which went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars.)
The 2022 Oscar Nominations
This year, THE POWER OF THE DOG, DUNE, BELFAST, AND WEST SIDE STORY led the nominations. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME got one nomination for Best Visual Effects, and a few expected nominees, like Lady Gaga and Jared Leto of HOUSE OF GUCCI, didn't score a nomination.
Here are the big nominees for the 2022 Oscars.
The nominees for Best Picture are BELFAST, CODA, DON’T LOOK UP, DRIVE MY CAR, DUNE, KING RICHARD, LICORICE PIZZA, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, THE POWER OF THE DOG, and WEST SIDE STORY. And while DUNE scored 11 nominations overall, an honor for directing is not among them. The Best Director nominees are Kenneth Branagh (BELFAST), Ryusuke Hamaguchi (DRIVE MY CAR), Paul Thomas Anderson (LICORICE PIZZA), Jane Campion (THE POWER OF THE DOG), and Steven Spielberg (WEST SIDE STORY).
The top acting nominees turned out to be more or less what guild nominations had predicted. For Best Actor, nominations went to Javier Bardem (BEING THE RICARDOS), Benedict Cumberbatch (THE POWER OF THE DOG), Andrew Garfield (TICK, TICK … BOOM!), Will Smith (KING RICHARD), and Denzel Washington (THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH). For Best Actress, the nominees are Jessica Chastain (THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE), Olivia Colman (THE LOST DAUGHTER), Penélope Cruz (PARALLEL MOTHERS), Nicole Kidman (BEING THE RICARDOS), and Kristen Stewart (SPENCER). That nomination for Kristen Stewart was a bit of a surprise, as she was not nominated for the SAG Awards.
There's a fun story out of the two Best Supporting Actor races, too, as real-life couple Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons were both nominated for their roles in THE POWER OF THE DOG. (Kodi Smit-McPhee was also nominated for his role in the same movie.) Additional Best Supporting acting nods went to Ciaran Hinds (BELFAST), Troy Kotsur (CODA), J.K. Simmons (BEING THE RICARDOS), Jessie Buckley (THE LOST DAUGHTER), Ariana DeBose (WEST SIDE STORY), Judi Dench (BELFAST), and Aunjanue Ellis (KING RICHARD).
Where can you watch the 2022 Oscar-nominated movies?
As we have done in the past, Cinemark will present Oscar Movie Week prior to the Oscar ceremony. This is the best way for you to see all the movies nominated for Best Picture. Passes to see every movie presented as part of Oscar Movie Week will go on sale Tuesday, February 8 at 12pm CT. Individual tickets for specific movies that are part of Oscar Movie Week will go on sale Friday, February 11.
Get More Information About Oscar Movie Week!
All images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.