Producers Guild of America (PGA) nominations: ‘Being the Ricardos’ in, blockbusters are out

The busiest day of guild nominations started off with a bang on Thursday with the Producers Guild of America (PGA) announcing its nominees for the best films of 2021, and it didn’t come without some snubs and surprises and a domination by Netflix, with three of the ten titles nominated for motion picture.

While we saw the majority of expected titles that have already curried favor with critics and other guilds, like Belfast, CODA, The Power of the Dog and Licorice Pizza, there was also the surprise addition of Being the Ricardos, directed by Aaron Sorkin and starring Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as television comedy icons Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Joining those films are: Don’t Look Up, Dune, King Richard, and tick, tick…BOOM! and curiously missing are high-profile titles like House of Gucci, which recently earned three Screen Actors Guild nominations, including for its cast. It’s the only SAG Cast nominee to miss here today. But the PGA also eschewed two major blockbusters, the bread and butter of their awards year to year. Neither No Time to Die nor Spider-Man: No Way Home made the list, the latter now the 6th highest grossing film of all time, in a pandemic, no less. Other notable misses were Nightmare Alley and The Tragedy of Macbeth.

The correlation between the PGA and Best Picture Oscar nominations is a pretty good one and we’ve returned to a straight 10 nominees for the Academy Awards. The last time the PGA and Oscar had ten nominations were the first two years of the Academy expanding the lineup, 2009 and 2010. Both of those years saw 9/10 matchup between the two so take a look at the list below because it’s more than likely that one film will miss Best Picture and be replaced by another. Only once in the 31 years of the Producers Guild Awards has the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner not been first nominated by the guild, 1995’s Braveheart.

In television, the PGA nominated The Handmaid’s Tale, The Morning Show, Squid Game, Succession and the breakout guild hit of the season, Yellowstone, for drama. For comedy we have Cobra Kai, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building and Ted Lasso. In limited or anthology series the nominees are Dopesick, Mare of Easttown, The Underground Railroad, WandaVision and The White Lotus.

The 32nd Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards are scheduled to be held on Saturday, March 19, 2022, at the Fairmont Century Plaza.

Here is the complete list of nominations.

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

Being the Ricardos
Producer: Todd Black, p.g.a.

Belfast
Producers: Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas

CODA
Producers: Philippe Rousselet, p.g.a., Fabrice Gianfermi, p.g.a., Patrick Wachsberger, p.g.a.

Don’t Look Up
Producers: Adam McKay, p.g.a., Kevin Messick, p.g.a.

Dune
Producers: Mary Parent, p.g.a., Cale Boyter, p.g.a., Denis Villeneuve, p.g.a.

King Richard
Producers: Tim White, p.g.a., Trevor White, p.g.a., Will Smith, p.g.a.

Licorice Pizza
Producers: Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson, Adam Somner

The Power of the Dog
Producers: Jane Campion, p.g.a., Tanya Seghatchian, p.g.a., Emile Sherman, p.g.a. & Iain Canning, p.g.a., Roger Frappier, p.g.a.

tick, tick…BOOM!
Producers: Julie Oh, p.g.a., Lin-Manuel Miranda, p.g.a.

West Side Story
Producers: Steven Spielberg, p.g.a., Kristie Macosko Krieger, p.g.a.

Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures

Encanto
Producers: Yvett Merino, p.g.a., Clark Spencer, p.g.a.

Luca
Producers: Andrea Warren, p.g.a.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Producers: Phil Lord, p.g.a. & Christopher Miller, p.g.a., Kurt Albrecht, p.g.a.

Raya and the Last Dragon
Producers: Osnat Shurer, p.g.a., Peter Del Vecho, p.g.a.

Sing 2
Producers: Chris Meledandri, p.g.a., Janet Healy, p.g.a.

Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama

The Handmaid’s Tale (Season 4)
The Morning Show (Season 2)
Squid Game (Season 1)
Succession (Season 3)
Yellowstone (Season 4)

Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy

Cobra Kai (Seasons 3 & 4)
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 11)
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Hacks (Season 1)
Producers: Jen Statsky, Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, Michael Schur, David Miner, Morgan Sackett, Joanna Calo, Andrew Law, David Hyman, Joe Mande, Jessica Chaffin

Only Murders in the Building (Season 1)
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Ted Lasso (Season 2)
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television

Dopesick
Mare of Easttown
The Underground Railroad
WandaVision
The White Lotus

Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures

8-Bit Christmas
Producers: Tim White, p.g.a. & Trevor White, p.g.a., Allan Mandelbaum, p.g.a.

Come From Away
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Oslo
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Single All The Way
Producer: Joel S. Rice, p.g.a.

Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television

60 Minutes (Season 54)
Allen v. Farrow (Season 1)
The Beatles: Get Back (Season 1)
Queer Eye (Season 6)
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (Season 1)

Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Season 27)
Dave Chappelle: The Closer
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (Season 8)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (Season 7)
Saturday Night Live (Season 47)

Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television

America’s Got Talent (Season 16)
Nailed It! (Seasons 5 & 6)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 13)
Top Chef (Season 18)
The Voice (Season 20)

Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures

The PGA previously announced the nominations in this category on December 10, 2021. 

Ascension
Producers: Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nathan Truesdell

The First Wave
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Flee
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

In The Same Breath
Producers: Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman & Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn

The Rescue
*Eligibility Determination Pending*

Simple As Water
Producers: Robin Hessman, Megan Mylan

Summer Of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Producers: Joseph Patel, p.g.a., David Dinerstein, p.g.a., Robert Fyvolent, p.g.a.

Writing With Fire
Producers: Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh

Photo: Glen Wilson/Amazon