Oscars nominations 2021: Brits, diversity and female directors rewarded
image copyrightNetflix/Universal/AmazonSacha Baron-Cohen, Carey Mulligan, Olivia Colman, Daniel Kaluuya and Sir Anthony Hopkins are among the British stars nominated for this year's Oscars.
Vanessa Kirby, Gary Oldman and Riz Ahmed are among the other UK nominees.
It is also the most diverse Oscars ever, with nine of the 20 acting nominees from non-white backgrounds.
And two women were nominated for best director - the first time more than one woman has been shortlisted for that prize in the awards' 93-year history.
image copyrightSEAN GLEASON/LionsgateChloe Zhao is nominated for directing Nomadland, and Britain's Emerald Fennell is recognised for Promising Young Woman.
Other nominated stars include Frances McDormand, Glenn Close, Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman.
Mank, the black-and-white drama starring Oldman as Citizen Kane writer Herman Mankiewicz, leads the overall field with 10 nominations.
This year's winners will be announced at the delayed ceremony on 25 April.
The leading nominees:
- 10 nominations - Mank
- 6 - The Father
- 6 - Judas and the Black Messiah
- 6 - Minari
- 6 - Nomadland
- 6 - Sound of Metal
- 6 - The Trial of the Chicago 7
- The Oscar nominations in full
The Brits are coming
image copyrightGlen Wilson/Warner BrosThe eight British acting nominees range from Ahmed, who receives his first Oscar nomination for playing a drummer who loses his hearing in Sound of Metal, to Sir Anthony, who earns his sixth nomination for playing a man who loses his grip on reality in The Father.
Colman will hope to repeat her 2019 success for The Favourite after being nominated this year for playing the daughter in The Father.
Sir Anthony and Ahmed are joined on the five-strong best actor shortlist by Oldman, who is back three years after winning for playing Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour.
Carey Mulligan is nominated for Promising Young Woman despite being shut out by this year's Baftas. The revenge thriller also earns Fennell, who is best known for acting in Call the Midwife and The Crown, nominations for best picture and best original screenplay as well as best director.
Kirby, who also made her name on The Crown, is nominated for playing a traumatised mother in Pieces of a Woman, while Kaluuya and Baron-Cohen are up for best supporting actor for Judas and the Black Messiah and The Trial of the Chicago 7 respectively.
Most diverse Oscar nominations
image copyrightAltitudeSix black actors and actresses are nominated, equalling the record set in 2017. This year, Kaluuya, Boseman and Davis are joined by US stars Andra Day, Leslie Odom Jr and Lakeith Stanfield.
Davis is shortlisted for playing a 1920s blues singer in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - the fourth nomination of her career, making her the most-nominated black actress ever.
Ahmed is reportedly the first Muslim actor and the first actor of Pakistani descent to get an Oscar nomination, and Yuh-Jung Youn is the first South Korean actress to get an Oscar nod. She will be joined at the ceremony by Steven Yeun, her Korean-American co-star in Minari.
Minari is also up for the Academy Awards' top prize, best picture, which is given to a film's producers. Its rivals for that award include Judas and the Black Messiah, which is the first best picture nominee to have an all-black line-up of producers.
Posthumous Oscar for Boseman?
image copyrightDavid Lee/NETFLIXBoseman is nominated alongside Davis for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - his final role before he died of cancer at the age of 43 last year.
The much-loved star, who is also known for his role in Black Panther, is the favourite to be rewarded with the best actor award.
If he does, he will be only the second posthumous best actor winner after Peter Finch for Network in 1976.
Female directors make history
image copyrightJoshua Richards/Searchlight PicturesOnly five women had been nominated for best director before, and only one has won - Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010.
This year, two of the five contenders are female, with Chinese-born, US-based Zhao the hot favourite for her story of a woman, played by Frances McDormand, who lives a nomadic life in a van.
Zhao is up for a total of four awards this year - best picture, best adapted screenplay and best editing, as well as best director. If she wins them all, she will equal a record set by Walt Disney, who is the only person to have won four Oscars in the same night.
Fennell is the first British woman to be up for best director. Some predicted a third female best director nominee this year, with Regina King tipped for One Night in Miami. She won an Oscar for her acting for If Beale Street Could Talk in 2019, but will not get a directing award to go with it this year.
Overall, a record 76 nominations went to women this year, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the awards.
Why Mank won't win best picture
Mank, about the making of Citizen Kane, may have the most Oscar nominations with 10, but it is highly unlikely to win best picture.
Crucially, it failed to land a screenwriting nomination. In the past 55 years, the only films to have been named best picture without one are The Sound of Music and Titanic - a musical and a film that relied on spectacle rather than script.
It has also missed out in best editing, a category in which, since 1981, every best picture winner has been nominated - apart from Birdman, which gave the appearance of not having been edited.
Mank's omission in these categories suggests it is a film the Academy admires, rather than loves.
It would appear to be destined for the same fate as the film it is about, which nominated for best picture at the 1941 Oscars, but lost out to How Green Was My Valley.
I have the favourite as Nomadland, which has already been a winner at the Golden Globes and the Critics' Choice Awards. However, it has one thing going against it - the Academy almost never rewards female-fronted films. Last year, 68% of Oscar voters were men and of the last 15 best picture winners, only one (The Shape of Water) even managed a best actress nomination.
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