On March 10th, the annual Academy Awards, or The Oscars, will be held. Jimmy Kimmel will be hosting, making this his fourth time hosting the awards. On January 23rd, the full list of nominees was released. Many nominations were historical, breaking standards and honoring some of Hollywood’s greatest actors. On the flip side, the Academy is known to cause controversy, and they definitely brought some problems this year.

One nomination that was especially important was Lily Gladstone’s nomination for Best Actress. She starred in Killers of the Flower Moon, a western crime drama based on a true story and book by David Grann. Gladstone is a member of the Blackfeet Nation, making her the first Native American actress to ever be nominated for an Oscar. She said she does this for “every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented and our stories told by ourselves in our own words…”

Another big topic brought up since the nominations were released is the Barbie movie. Barbie was nominated for numerous awards, like Best Picture, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design. Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress. However, the star of the movie, Margot Robbie, received nothing. Even further, director Greta Gerwig was only nominated alongside her husband in Best Adapted Screenplay. Gerwig did not receive any nominations on her own for directing a record-breaking movie. Many are questioning that if Barbie was good enough to get all these nominations, how is the woman who made it not?

Furthermore, Martin Scorsese has become the oldest director nominee at age 81. Scorsese directed and produced Killers of the Flower Moon. The film received 10 nominations this year.

Oppenheimer was nominated 13 times, and Poor Things was nominated 11 times. Yet again, though, many films have been deemed overlooked. For instance, May December star Charles Melton did not receive any nominations although his performance was widely acclaimed. Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred side by side with Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon also got nothing. 

Overall, award season always brings tension and questions. It is guaranteed to be very interesting to see how all these nominations play out.