Jane Campion’s take on the old school of bravado westerns, The Power of the Dog, led the 3rd Discussing Film Critics nominations announced today with 11, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director and Adapted Screenplay for Campion and three acting nominations: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Right behind were Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Pablo Larraín’s Spencer with 10 nominations apiece, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director, a total the former achieved without a single acting nod. Fran Kranz’s Mass and Titane earned seven nods apiece, including Best Motion Picture with the latter also grabbing a Best Director nod for Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story was nominated for six awards including Best Motion Picture and Best Director.
Rounding out the Best Motion Picture nominees were C’mon C’mon, The Green Knight, Petite Maman and tick, tick…BOOM!
Ranking low on the nomination totals were films that have had a good start with critics’ groups like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. Both earned a nomination in the Best Debut Performance category (for Alana Haim and Jude Hill, respectively) and Belfast was nominated in the Best Use of Music for Jamie Dornan’s rendition of “Everlasting Love.” The star-studded Don’t Look Up from Adam McKay only received two nominations, for its editing and song but nothing for its actors and two other huge star projects, Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci with Lady Gaga and Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos with Nicole Kidman, were snubbed entirely.
Here is the full list of nominees. Winners will be announced on January 4, 2022.
Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.