Los Gatos-based Netflix is the only one of the big players in streaming video to score big with Oscar nominations this year for their German-language WWI epic All Quiet on the Western Front.
The 2023 Oscar nominations were announced early Tuesday morning, and after several years of encroachment on Hollywood's biggest awards field, streaming services did not outshine the film studios in terms of nominations scored.
The biggest winner in nomination numbers was Everything Everywhere All at Once, A24's fever dream fantasy/sci-fi/family drama that may finally bring an Oscar to lead actress Michelle Yeoh. (Yeoh has already taken home dozens of Critics' Circle awards and a Golden Globe for the role.) The movie has 11 nominations in total, including nods for its entire principal cast, including Supporting Actress nominations for Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis, and a Supporting Actor nod for Ke Huy Quan — a.k.a. Jonathan Ke Quan, known to those of a certain age as Data from Goonies, and Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, when he was a child star.
But coming in second, with nine nominations apiece, were Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Banshees of Inisherin, a Searchlight production. The latter won nods for four of its stars, including lead actor Colin Farrell and supporting actor Brendan Gleeson. (It's available for streaming now on HBO Max, FYI.)
The Netflix film, directed by Edward Berger and based on the 1928 antiwar novel by Erich Maria Remarque, scored nominations for Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Adapted Screenplay — but no nods in the acting or directing categories.
These nomination results are in contrast to the last two pandemic years in which some high-profile films were distributed via streaming only, including last year's Best Picture winner, Apple's CODA. 2021's Best Picture Winner, Nomadland, had a very brief theatrical release before being streamed on Hulu.
Brian Tyree Henry's supporting actor nomination for Causeway is the only big nomination that Apple+ got this year.
But 2023's slate of movies brings us back to pre-pandemic times in terms big, splashy productions competing for prizes, including movies that scored big at the box office last year like Top Gun: Maverick (six noms), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (five noms), and Avatar: The Way of Water (four noms). There's also Steven Spielberg's highly personal The Fabelmans, with seven nominations, including a fifth acting nod for Michelle Williams, and a ninth directing nod for Spielberg.
The Oscars, again hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will air on Sunday, March 12 on ABC.
Top image via Netflix