From Judi Dench to Denzel Washington to Kristen Stewart: 2022 Oscars Stats, Trivia, History and more

No doubt one of the best parts of any Oscar nomination day is what stats or streaks were broken, who sets a new record for nomination (or extends their existing one) and much more.

Here’s a handful from Judi Dench, Jane Campion, Denzel Washington and more. Let’s get into it.

At 179 minutes, Drive My Car the third-longest Picture nominee of any kind this or last decade, behind only The Irishman (209 minutes) and Return of the King (200 minutes) and tied with The Two Towers.

Denzel Washington is now tied in third as the most-nominated male actor ever with nine acting nominations: Spencer Tracy, Al Pacino and Paul Newman, just behind Jack Nicholson (12) and Laurence Olivier (10). Washington has 10 nominations overall, including one as a producer on 2016’s Fences.

Washington also joins his The Tragedy of Macbeth co-star Frances McDormand as the first two actors to be nominated across the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, 10’s, and now 20’s.

Cate Blanchett appears in two Best Picture nominees this year (Nightmare Alley and Don’t Look Up) and becomes the actress that has starred in most BP nominees with 9 (tying her with Tom Hanks). The only actors that have more are DiCaprio (10) who also adds one this year (Don’t Look Up), Jack Nicholson (10) and Robert De Niro (11).

At 87 years and two months old, Judi Dench (Belfast) is the third oldest acting nominee of all time, behind only Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World and Gloria Stuart in Titanic. She is the first non-American actress to break the barrier of seven nominations. The only actresses who were nominated 8+ times have all been Americans so far: Meryl Streep, Katharine Hepburn, Glenn Close, Bette Davis and Geraldine Page. Finally, Dench also is now the most-nominated British actress of all time, surpassing Greer Garson. Fun fact, Dench earned all eight of her nominations after the age of 63.

Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) joins Isabelle Adjani, Liv Ullmann, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard as the only actresses with two nominations for 100% full non-English language speaking roles, the first in Spanish.

Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos) is tied with Charles Boyer as the Continental European (not British) male actor with second most nominations at four. Paul Muni is the first with five (one write-in).

Tying Cruz and Bardem together, this is first time ever two off-screen life couples have nominated together in the same year; Bardem and Cruz join Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst, both in The Power of the Dog.

Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) is the first Afro-Latina and openly queer acting nominee in Oscar history. If she wins she will become only the second Latina ever to win an acting Oscar. The first was Rita Moreno, who played Anita, the same part as DeBose, in the 1961 version of the film.

Kristen Stewart is the first openly queer Best Actress nominee in Oscar history at the time of her nomination.

Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) is the only female director to have directed seven performances to Oscar nominations.

Troy Kotsur is the first deaf male actor to get a Oscar nomination, and the first deaf nominee since his co-star Marlee Matlin, won the Best Actress Oscar for 1986’s Children of a Lesser God. CODA is the first Best Picture nominee to feature deaf actors front and center as deaf characters.

The Power of the Dog is the first film to earn four acting nominations at the Oscars without a SAG Cast nomination since the category was created in 1995.

With Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture in addition to her previous Director and Original Screenplay nominations, Campion is the only woman to be nominated in the four distinct categories. If she wins Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay, she’ll be the first woman and third person overall to win in those four categories. Chloé Zhao was also nominated in four categories last year, and won two. Joel and Ethan Coen did it with Fargo (Original Screenplay) and No Country for Old Men (Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay).

Steven Spielberg ties Billy Wilder as the third most-nominated director of all time with 8, behind only Martin Scorsese (9) and William Wyler (12). He is also the first director to be nominated in six consecutive decades. With West Side Story as his 12th film as Best Picture, he is now just one behind Wyler with 13.

Flee is the first film to get Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and International Feature Film nominations.

Being the Ricardos is the first film to receive three acting nominations and nothing else since 2012’s The Master from Paul Thomas Anderson. Incidentally, Anderson’s Licorice Pizza is the first movie to be nominated for only Picture, Directing, and Writing since 1957’s 12 Angry Men.

With his nominations for Best Picture and Original Screenplay for Belfast, Kenneth Branagh surpasses Walt Disney and George Clooney as the sole individual with the nominations across the most categories at seven. He was previously nominated for Best Director and Best Actor (1989’s Henry V), Best Supporting Actor (2011’s My Week with Marilyn), Adapted Screenplay (1996’s Hamlet) and Live Action Short Film (1992’s Swan Song). 

Branagh also now has the second-longest the longest gap between Best Director nominations at 32 years between Henry V and Belfast. John Huston is still at #1 with a 33-year gap. Campion is third at 28 years between nominations.

Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt are the first Nordic (and first non-Swedish) nominees in Original Screenplay since 1983, breaking the stranglehold of Ingmar Bergman.

Billie Eilish is the second-youngest nominee for Original Song at 20 years old. Markéta Irglová was one month shy of her 20th birthday when she was nominated for “Falling Slowly.” If No Time to Die had not been delayed, Eilish would have been the youngest nominee ever.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) is the third woman to be nominated in both acting and writing after Emma Thompson and Ruth Gordon.

Speaking of writing, this is the first year since 1991 that three women are credited screenwriters on three different films in adapted screenplay and the first time ever as sole screenwriters (Siân Heder, CODA; Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter; Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog).

This is the first time that Best Cinematography and Best Production Design matched up 5/5 since the black-and-white and color cinematography categories merged in 1967.