Sinners, a Segregation-era vampire thriller starring Michael B Jordan, has stormed into the awards race with the most Academy Award nominations of any film this year, landing a record 16 nods.
The large haul sets up Sinners as the frontrunner heading into the March 15 Oscars, where it will face off against contenders including One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme and others for the coveted best picture prize.
The previous record for most nominations in a single year was 14, a mark hit by All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land.
Bugonia, F1, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value and Train Dreams also were nominated for this year’s best picture trophy.
Jordan was nominated for best actor for his dual role in Sinners as twin brothers who set up a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi.
Other nominations for the Warner Bros film include best director for Ryan Coogler, supporting actor for Delroy Lindo, supporting actress for Wunmi Mosaku and best cinematography, costume design, original screenplay and visual effects.
Jordan’s competition includes Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another, which scored 13 nominations, and Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme.
For best actress, Jessie Buckley was nominated for Hamnet and Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue.
Winners of the gold Oscar statuettes will be chosen by the roughly 10,000 actors, producers, directors and film craftspeople who make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Walt Disney’s ABC will broadcast the awards, and comedian Conan O’Brien will host for the second straight year.
Warner Bros Discovery, the studio subject to a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount Skydance, led all studios with 30 nominations.
Netflix has never won best picture despite nominations for such films as Roma, Emilia Perez and The Irishman.
It has a chance this year with Frankenstein, which earned nine nominations.
The streaming service releases its movies in theatres for only a limited time to qualify them for awards consideration.
Actors Rose Byrne and Jacob Elordi are leading an Aussie onslaught in Hollywood, with both receiving their first Oscar nominations.
The pair are nominated for best actress, best supporting actor, and are joined by a third Australian in line for a major gong with Nick Cave getting a surprise shot at best original song.
Byrne’s performance in indie film If I had Legs I’d Kick You has already earned her the best actress prize at four key pre-Oscars events including the Golden Globes.
She received the news of her Oscar nomination in the middle of the night in Australia.
“I was falling asleep and then (husband Bobby Cannavale) starts FaceTiming me (from New York) because I wanted to try and stay up but it was so late,” she said.
“And then he started screaming, it was like ‘They said your name!’ and then my parents came in the room, they’re like ‘Oh my God’ and then we were all screaming, and that was it. Now I’ve had a shot of adrenaline and I’m wide awake.”
Byrne is up against Jessie Buckley in Hamnet, Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue, Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value and Emma Stone in Bugonia.
Elordi has been nominated for his role in Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, one of nine nods for the Netflix film.
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, the Brisbane-born actor said he was “beside himself” after receiving the news.
“I am so excited. I mean, I’m 28 years old. It’s wind in the sails,” he said.
Cave was nominated for the title song to Clint Bentley’s film Train Dreams, which stars Australian actor Joel Edgerton.
Joel Edgerton, the central pillar of Train Dreams, was not nominated, though the picture earned four nominations, including best picture.
Australian costume and production designer Fiona Crombie has also been nominated for an Oscar this year, in the best production design category, for her work on Hamnet.