‘Mank’ Leads With 10 Oscar Nods; Netflix Comes Out Ahead

Monday’s reveal begins the final phase of an awards season that managed to seem both shrunken in scale and endless in duration. The marquee Oscar categories are populated by movies that played to niche audiences, who mostly watched at home. By this time last year, Oscars had long since been handed out (including the top prize for “Parasite”). The 2021 telecast is scheduled for Sunday, April 25.

“Nomadland,” which recently won the Golden Globe for best drama and accolades from multiple critics’ groups, reinforced its status as a frontrunner for the top Oscar. The story of an itinerant worker roaming the West in her van is the only best-picture contender to be nominated across all key categories, for its cinematography, directing, editing and screenplay.

Two firsts occurred in the best director category, where the nominees are: Thomas Vinterberg, (“Another Round”), Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), David Fincher (“Mank”), Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”). This is the only time that more than one woman has been nominated in a single year. And it’s the first time a female director of color (Ms. Zhao) has received a nod. In the previous 92 iterations of the Academy Awards, five women total have been nominated for best-director Oscar, and one has won: “The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow.

Chadwick Boseman, who died last year at age 43, received a best-actor nomination for his role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” If he goes on to win, he would be the second posthumous best-actor winner, after Peter Finch for “Network” in 1977.

Mr. Boseman is competing with Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”), Gary Oldman (“Mank”) and Steven Yeun (“Minari”), who became the category’s first Asian American nominee ever.

Mr. Boseman’s co-star Viola Davis was nominated for best actress, along with Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”), Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”), Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”), and Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman.”)

Glenn Close, who in 2019 lost the best-actress Oscar to Olivia Colman, will have a rematch against her in the race for best supporting actress. Ms. Close is nominated for “Hillbilly Elegy,” Ms. Colman for “The Father,” along with Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”), Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) and Youn Yuh-jung (“Minari”).

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” about the FBI’s infiltration of the Black Panther Party, landed two candidates for best supporting actor: Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield. They were nominated with Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”), Leslie Odom, Jr. (“One Night in Miami”), Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal”).

With most big-budget movies wiped from the release calendar in 2020, only a handful of would-be blockbusters were eligible for Oscars. “Mulan” and “Tenet” were among the few exceptions and were represented in technical categories, such as visual effects.

Apple earned its first ever Oscar nominations with “Wolfwalkers” (best animated feature) and “Greyhound” (sound).

With three films vying for best picture, Netflix led all Hollywood studios in total nominations by a long way with 35 nods. The streamer, which has yet to win a best-picture Oscar, faces off in that category with fellow tech giant Amazon Studios, which produced “Sound of Metal.” But streaming movies won’t stand out this year as they did in the past. The pandemic forced the Academy to temporarily waive rules requiring movies to play in theaters, and almost every nominated film mainly played on TV screens for viewers on their couches.

Write to John Jurgensen at [email protected]