'Roma' And 'The Favourite' Lead Oscar Nominations

Eight best picture nominations emerged on Tuesday morning: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, Vice, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma and A Star Is Born. They are comedic and dramatic, based on real events and conjured from the pages of comics, in color and in black and white.

If you wanted to take the nominations as a whole as a sign of the exciting year that 2018 was, you might focus on the best actress nomination for Yalitza Aparicio, the first-time actress who anchors Alfonso Cuaron's beautiful Roma, a black-and-white subtitled film widely available on Netflix. You might focus on the seven nominations for Black Panther, the best director nomination for Paweł Pawlikowski for Poland's Cold War, or the fact that both of the most-nominated films with ten nods apiece, Roma and The Favourite, are stories of women not oriented around their relationships to men. You might thrill to the best animated feature nomination for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, which reimagined the superhero film — narratively, visually and culturally.

On the other hand, if you wanted to see those nominations through the lens of their considerable disappointments, you might note the lack of best picture or best director nominations for Barry Jenkins' beautiful and unforgettable If Beale Street Could Talk; the failure to nominate Ryan Coogler, one of Hollywood's best rising directors, for the triumph of Black Panther; the failure to nominate any women directors at all again and very few women screenwriters again; or the complete shutout of spectacular achievements like Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade and Debra Granik's Leave No Trace. It would have been lovely to see a nod for Michelle Yeoh for Crazy Rich Asians in a year in which the film was such a powerful force.

There are always delights and there is always dismay. It's lovely to see Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant nominated for their work in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and to see the script from Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty nominated. But where is the director, Marielle Heller? Where is the film's best picture nomination? It's thrilling to see Free Solo, an exciting and unconventional rock-climbing documentary, nominated for best documentary feature. But nothing for Won't You Be My Neighbor, a fine film that also resonated beautifully with audiences?

The eye of the beholder is a tricky thing.

Nominations rarely come as a big surprise. There were some genuine upsets (or reverse upsets) on this day, like the lack of a best director nomination for Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born, despite the film's best picture nomination and nominations for acting, cinematography, original song, sound mixing and adapted screenplay. There was not even a nomination for Justin Hurwitz's original score for First Man, which just won the Golden Globe. But for the most part, it went as expected: big hauls for Adam McKay's Vice (eight nominations), Black Panther (seven nominations), Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (six nominations), and Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book — the two recent Golden Globe best film winners in drama and comedy respectively — with five.

Now and again, the Oscars are legitimately exciting. It may take a misread best picture envelope to make it so, but it does happen. Whether it happened on Tuesday morning may depend on just how many advances and retreats in a given year you have come to expect from the Academy.

Updated 10:15 a.m. ET

This year's Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday morning. Below is the complete list.

Best picture

BlacKkKlansman

Black Panther

Bohemian Rhapsody

The Favourite

Green Book

Roma

A Star Is Born

Vice

Directing

Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)

Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite)

Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)

Adam McKay (Vice)

Actress in a leading role

Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)

Glenn Close (The Wife)

Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)

Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Actor in a leading role

Christian Bale (Vice)

Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)

Willem Dafoe (At Eternity's Gate)

Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)

Actress in a supporting role

Amy Adams (Vice)

Marina de Tavira (Roma)

Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Emma Stone (The Favourite)

Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Actor in a supporting role

Mahershala Ali (Green Book)

Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)

Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born)

Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Sam Rockwell (Vice)

Animated feature film

Incredibles 2

Isle Of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks The Internet

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

Cinematography

Cold War

The Favourite

Never Look Away

Roma

A Star Is Born

Costume design

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

Black Panther

The Favourite

Mary Poppins Returns

Mary Queen Of Scots

Documentary (feature)

Free Solo

Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Minding The Gap

Of Fathers And Sons

RBG

Documentary (short subject)

Black Sheep

End Game

Lifeboat

A Night At The Garden

Period. End of Sentence.

Film editing

BlacKkKlansman

Bohemian Rhapsody

The Favourite

Green Book

Vice

Foreign language film

Capernaum (Lebanon)

Cold War (Poland)

Never Look Away (Germany)

Roma (Mexico)

Shoplifters (Japan)

Makeup and hairstyling

Border

Mary Queen Of Scots

Vice

Music (original score)

Black Panther

BlacKkKlansman

If Beale Street Could Talk

Isle of Dogs

Mary Poppins Returns

Music (original song)

"When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings" (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs)

"All The Stars" (Black Panther)

"The Place Where Lost Things Go" (Mary Poppins Returns)

"I'll Fight" (RBG)

"Shallow" (A Star Is Born)

Production design

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Mary Poppins Returns

Roma

Short film (animated)

Animal Behaviour

Bao

Late Afternoon

One Small Step

Weekends

Short film (live action)

Detainment

Fauve

Marguerite

Mother

Skin

Sound editing

First Man

Black Panther

Bohemian Rhapsody

A Quiet Place

Roma

Sound mixing

Black Panther

Bohemian Rhapsody

First Man

Roma

A Star Is Born

Visual effects

Avengers: Infinity War

Christopher Robin

First Man

Ready Player One

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Writing (adapted screenplay)

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

BlacKkKlansman

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Star Is Born

Writing (original screenplay)

The Favourite

First Reformed

Green Book

Roma

Vice [Copyright 2019 NPR]