And the Academy Award for Best Original Score goes to … that alien sound from Annihilation! Okay, we don’t know that for sure quite yet, but a featureless silver simulacrum of a girl can dream, can’t she? The Academy doesn’t announce its official Oscar nominees until Tuesday, January 22, but on Monday they started teasing their category shortlists. Yes, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning are on the shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film. Yes, that Annihilation sound is up for Best Original Score (along with, you know, the film’s many other tracks). And yes, Kendrick Lamar, Dolly Parton, and Lady Gaga all have a tune in the running for Best Original Song. Interesting how Mary Poppins Returns has two songs in this narrowed-down field while A Star Is Born only has the one. But you know what? It’s an honor just to be shortlisted. Check below for the contenders in nine categories the Academy has announced so far.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Charm City
Communion
Crime + Punishment
Dark Money
The Distant Barking of Dogs
Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
On Her Shoulders
RBG
Shirkers
The Silence of Others
Three Identical Strangers
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Black Sheep
End Game
Lifeboat
Los Comandos
My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes
A Night at the Garden
Period. End of Sentence.
’63 Boycott
Women of the Gulag
Zion
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Colombia, Birds of Passage
Denmark, The Guilty
Germany, Never Look Away
Japan, Shoplifters
Kazakhstan, Ayka
Lebanon, Capernaum
Mexico, Roma
Poland, Cold War
South Korea, Burning
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Stan & Ollie
Suspiria
Vice
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Annihilation
Avengers: Infinity War
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Crazy Rich Asians
The Death of Stalin
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns
A Quiet Place
Ready Player One
Vice
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
“Treasure” from Beautiful Boy
“All the Stars” from Black Panther
“Revelation” from Boy Erased
“Girl in the Movies” from Dumplin’
“We Won’t Move” from The Hate U Give
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns
“Trip a Little Light Fantastic” from Mary Poppins Returns
“Keep Reachin’” from Quincy
“I’ll Fight” from RBG
“A Place Called Slaughter Race” from Ralph Breaks the Internet
“OYAHYTT” from Sorry to Bother You
“Shallow” from A Star Is Born
“Suspirium” from Suspiria
“The Big Unknown” from Widows
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Age of Sail
Animal Behaviour
Bao
Bilby
Bird Karma
Late Afternoon
Lost & Found
One Small Step
Pépé le Morse
Weekends
LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Caroline
Chuchotage
Detainment
Fauve
Icare
Marguerite
May Day
Mother
Skin
Wale
VISUAL EFFECTS
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Christopher Robin
First Man
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Mary Poppins Returns
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Welcome to Marwen
