Emilia Pérez, Wicked dominate Oscar nominations, Sugarcane up for best doc

As fresh fires raced through the Los Angeles region on Thursday, an embattled movie industry rallied for the announcement of the Oscar nominations, with Canadian stories and artists scoring nods across numerous categories, including best documentary for a film investigating a B.C. residential school. 

The big winner of the day, leading with 13 nominations, was the Spanish-language, French-made film, Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, the Netflix narco-musical about transgender identity. Among its other nods, the film racked up best picture and best actress for Karla Sofía Gascón, making her the first openly trans actor nominated for an Oscar.

Another musical — Wicked, the smash Broadway adaptation — came away with nearly as many nominations. Jon M. Chu's lavish riff on Wizard of Oz scored 10 nominations, including best picture and acting nods for its stars, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. 

Tied for second place in nominations was The Brutalist, a haunting postwar period drama about an architect. Its 10 nominations include one for director Brady Corbet, a best picture nod and acting nominations for Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones. 

Secwépemc filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat and journalist Emily Kassie, who was born in Toronto, are up for an Oscar for their landmark documentary Sugarcane, which follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at a B.C. residential school near Sugar Cane reserve in Williams Lake, B.C.

NoiseCat's family was sent to that residential school, and the film has been lauded for its groundbreaking look at not only the horrors of the past but the ongoing trauma cycling through generations. 

The two filmmakers said they were "overjoyed and filled with gratitude" in the wake of the nomination, thanking their creative team and National Geographic Documentary Films in a written statement. 

"Above all, we want to acknowledge the courage and fortitude of our participants and the thousands of survivors of Indian residential and boarding schools across North America who have been ignored for too long, as well as the generations of families who continue to suffer their harms," Noisecat and Kassie wrote. 

"In a moment where justice seems out of reach, we are grateful that Sugarcane has helped illuminate the truth, bring about healing and called institutions of power to account."

Quebec-born filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two is in the running for best picture. The sequel to 2021's Dune, which was also nominated for best picture, picks up where the first space epic left off, following Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides as he joins forces with the Fremen to seek revenge against those who destroyed his family.

Villeneuve is nominated alongside his wife, producer Tanya Lapointe, along with producers Mary Parent and Cole Boyter. The four said in a statement Thursday that they were "extremely proud of the Academy's recognition of Dune: Part II."

The gothic horror film Nosferatu, Robert Eggers' remake of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent film, has also scored some nominations for Canadian artists.  

Toronto's Linda Muir, who has been working in film, television and theatre since the 1970s, was nominated for best costume design on the film.

Canadian Traci Loader was also nominated for makeup and hairstyling for the vampire film, along with David White and Suzanne Stokes-Munton. Both Loader and Muir have worked with Eggers on several previous films, including 2015's The Witch and 2019's The Lighthouse.

Loader told CBC News Network that it was "very surreal, very overwhelming," to be nominated. 

It was another member of her team that was in charge of the dramatic, grotesque look for Orlok, the central vampire, but Loader was a key part of the realistic appearance of the other characters in the period drama, something she thought the Academy members appreciated. 

The makeup also helped to shape the trajectory and decline of Lily Rose Depp's character throughout the movie, she said. 

"If you take a photo from the beginning of the movie and the end, you see a huge journey," she said. "When you do it subtly... it impacts the story more."

WATCH | Canadian makeup artist on the "surreal" experience of being nominated for an Oscar:

'Very overwhelming': Canadian receives Oscar nomination for work on Nosferatu

6 hours ago

Duration 4:36

Canadian makeup artist Traci Loader has been nominated for an Academy Award for best makeup and hairstyling for her work on the gothic horror film Nosferatu. Loader says director Robert Eggers prefers 'everything to be as realistic as possible.'

Actors and artists react

Zoe Saldana, who was nominated for the first time at the Oscars on Thursday for her role in Emilia Pérez, said on Instagram that she was "thrilled to be among such talented company." In a second post, she shared videos of her dancing with her kids and crying and celebrating on other occasions, writing "How today feels."

Cynthia Erivo celebrated her best actress nomination with a post on Instagram, saying she was "deeply grateful for this unbelievable recognition," and that her younger self was "glowing from ear to ear."

In a video, she wipes her eyes and admits that she found out about the nomination while on a plane, making a quip about "defying gravity" — one of the iconic songs her character sings in Wicked.

Co-star Ariana Grande said on Instagram that she was "picking my head up in between sobs to say thank you so much" after she was nominated for best supporting actress. 

The first-time nominee thanked director Jon M. Chu "for taking this chance on me," and shared a video of herself singing a song from the musical as a child. 

Colman Domingo is up for best actor for the second year in a row for his role in Sing Sing, after being nominated last year for Rustin. 

"Second time around. Grateful about it all," he wrote on Instagram. "No one does this alone. I have so much love and faith and human beings around me."

After Isabella Rossellini secured a best supporting actress nomination for her performance in Conclave, despite only having roughly eight minutes of screentime, she honoured her one-time collaborator David Lynch in a statement, telling The Associated Press that her work with the late director on his film Blue Velvet was "key to my understanding of the art of acting."

Rossellini, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman, also remarked that she wished her parents "were alive to help me celebrate this great honour."

In reflection on his best supporting actor nomination for his role in The Apprentice, Jeremy Strong drew a connection to the present moment. The film is an account of Donald Trump's early career as a businessman, and Strong said he had "complicated feelings" about his character, Trump's late attorney Roy Cohn. 

"It was the role of a lifetime, and at the same time his legacy is real and it's playing out in front of our eyes in very frightening ways," Strong said from his home in Brooklyn. "I do think the movie offers tremendous insight into how we got to where we are today."

Adrien Brody posted photos of his mother and grandfather alongside behind-the-scenes photos of The Brutalist on his Instagram after receiving the best actor nomination, saying he was "truly humbled." 

The actor, who previously won best actor in 2003 for his role in The Pianist, wrote that "portraying Laszlo Toth, and representing the hardships and yearnings of so many, including the very struggles of my own family, has rekindled my own sense of being and belonging and believing again." 

"I was inside my car with my daughters and wife, and my nomination was first and my name was first," Yura Borisov said after receiving a best supporting actor nod for his role in Anora. The film follows the tumultuous marriage between a young sex worker and a Russian oligarch. "And after that ... screaming and crying. [It was] a very emotional moment, I can say, for everybody."

Other reactions were more subdued. 

Gints Zilbalodis, the Latvian director of the animated film Flow, shared a video of himself on X crunching his way through an apple while watching the live announcement of the nominations with his dog — who served as the model for one of the film's characters — sprawled out next to him. As nominations for best international feature film and best animated feature film are announced for Flow, Zilbalodis smiles excitedly and cuddles up to his dog, still chewing.

The full list of nominations 

Best picture:

• Anora
• The Brutalist
• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Dune: Part Two 
• Emilia Pérez 
• I'm Still Here
• Nickel Boys
• The Substance
• Wicked

Best actor:

• Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
• Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
• Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
• Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
• Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Best actress:

• Demi Moore, The Substance
• Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
• Mikey Madison, Anora
• Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
• Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here

Original song:

• El Mal from Emilia Perez
• The Journey from The Six Triple Eight
• Like a Bird from Sing Sing
• Mi Camino from Emilia Pérez
• Never Too Late from Elton John: Never Too Late 

Best animated film: 

• Flow
• Inside Out 2
• Memoir of a Snail
• Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
• The Wild Robot

Best supporting actor:

• Yura Borisov, Anora
• Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
• Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
• Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
• Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Best supporting actress:

• Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
• Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
• Ariana Grande, Wicked
• Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
• Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

WATCH | CBC's review of Wicked:

Wicked isn't perfect, but it's what the world needs right now

2 months ago

Duration 8:53

Wicked is half of a story, somehow expanding just the first part into a runtime longer than the entire stage musical. That said, the performances, the lush world of Oz and, above all, the music make it a perfect place to escape, says the CBC's Eli Glasner.

Best original screenplay:

• Anora 
• The Brutalist
• A Real Pain
• September 5
• The Substance

Best adapted screenplay:

• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Nickel Boys
• Sing Sing

Best directing:

• Sean Baker, Anora
• Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
• James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
• Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
• Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Best documentary feature film:

• Black Box Diaries
• No Other Land
• Porcelain War
• Soundtrack to a Coup D'etat
• Sugarcane

Best original score:

• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Best international feature film:

• I'm Still Here – Brazil
• The Girl with the Needle – Denmark
• Emilia Pérez – France
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Germany
• Flow – Latvia

Best costume design:

• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Gladiator II
• Nosferatu
• Wicked

Makeup and hair styling: 

• A Different Man
• Emilia Pérez
• Nosferatu
• The Substance
• Wicked

Production design:

• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Dune: Part Two
• Nosferatu
• Wicked

Best film editing: 

• Anora
• The Brutalist 
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked

Best sound: 

• A Complete Unknown
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Visual effects:

• Alien: Romulus
• Better Man
• Dune: Part Two
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Wicked

Best cinematography:

• The Brutalist
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez
• Maria
• Nosferatu

Live action short film:

• A Lien
• Anuja
• I'm Not a Robot
• The Last Ranger
• The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Animated short film:

• Beautiful Men
• In the Shadow of the Cypress
• Magic Candies
• Wander to Wonder
• Yuck!

Documentary short film:

• Death by Numbers
• I Am Ready, Warden
• Incident
• Instruments of a Beating Heart
• The Only Girl in the Orchestra