With Paul Thomas Anderson Finally Winning an Oscar, Which Multi-Nominee is Next?
A week ago, Paul Thomas Anderson won three Oscars for One Battle After Another: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, capping off a 28-year drought from 14 career nominations with a coronation that we hadn’t really seen since Martin Scorsese finally winning for 2006’s The Departed. Granted, since that win it’s been pretty rough for one of Hollywood’s most respected and venerable directors, going 0-8 on all of his follow-up nominations since then. Let’s hope Anderson has better luck.
But it made me think of when and why the Academy decides to finally reward someone after decades of work and nominations, and when they just don’t. The Hollywood Rosevelt Hotel, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Shrine Auditorium, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Dolby Theatre are littered with performers and artisans who got close but fell short of Oscar glory. Sympathy and longevity will only take you so far, as Deborah Kerr, Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton would probably tell you.
The Oscars are often about right time/right place for a win, or at least can appear that way from the outside. With 10,000+ voting members it’s not like there’s a group chat that says ‘ok, we’re all voting for PTA this year, right?’ It’s almost like a sixth sense. I think you can partially attribute that to Michael B. Jordan’s Best Actor win for Sinners this season, it felt right. That’s obviously not to disparage Jordan or his performance in any way. But the Academy looked at previous winner Leonardo DiCaprio in the Best Picture winner and three-time acting nominee Timothée Chalamet as an early frontrunner–both who got several career-best notices–and found something different in Jordan (who also got career-best mentions) that spoke to something grander, and all on his first nomination. That’s just the way the cards are rolled out sometimes.
When you look at how Oscar voting happens in its two (or sometimes three) stages, it becomes a bit clearer in some instances how so many nominations just don’t end in a win. Branches vote on individual categories; cinematographers nominate cinematographers, sound designers nominate sound designers, etc. This is how we get visual effects artists, production designers, makeup designers and more nabbing a dozen or more career nominations. Art director Roland Anderson was nominated 15 times over a span of 30 years from A Farewell to Arms (1933) to Love with a Proper Stranger (1963). Cinematographer George J. Folsey earned 13 nominations in exactly the same time period, both never won. Cinematographer Roger Deakins has the happier version, finally winning after 14 nominations (just Anderson). But I digress.
While half of Oscars’ categories have a single nomination voting stage and winner voting stage, we now have a shortlist stage for 12 of them, including sound, visual effects, song, score and the brand new casting category. These branches whittle down all eligible films (in the hundreds for each branch) to anywhere from 10-20, depending on category, from which the branches choose the nominations from. Once nominations are out though, it’s anyone’s game as the entire Academy can vote. The international film category (then called foreign language film) has gone through several changes of shortlist and nomination stages ranging from a group as small as 30 making the nomination decision to the entire Academy to a preliminary committee for the shortlist and a nominating committee for the nominations. But again, I digress.
These branch-by-branch choices is why we often see the same names year after year. Not cronyism exactly, but definitely insular group choices that are born of familiarity. Think Neil Corbould in visual effects or Diane Warren in original song. These are artisans who have so much respect, and pull, within their branches that you’re always going to see their names pop up.
With that, here are the people with the most nominations without a win and if I think a win is in the cards for them.
Diane Warren – 17 nominations all in Original Song
I mentioned her above for a reason, but no living person has amassed as many nominations as Warren without a win. More often than not, she’s the film’s only nomination and that is often her Achilles’ heel. It takes a substantial frontrunner to be the winner in that instance (if you aren’t from an animated film pre the animated feature category) and Warren has rarely been in the pole position between nomination and winner voting. Even with chart-topping nominated pop hits like “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” and “How Do I Live,” there was always another film, another song, standing in her way. She probably got the closest with “Til It Happens to You” from 2015’s The Hunting Ground, which she would have shared with Lady Gaga (who would win here just three years later) but lost to Sam Smith for their song “Writing’s On the Wall” from the James Bond film Spectre. That year saw all song nominees as their film’s only nomination, truly giving her the best chance she’d had in years. But after 50+ years of a Bond song never winning, it happened three years prior and then would again in 2020. It was a tide shift. In 2022, Warren received an Honorary Oscar, the first composer to ever receive one, and many thought that would mark the end of her nomination prowess. They were wrong. She’s received four more nominations–all in consecutive years–since then.
Can she win? Probably. There is obviously a disconnect between the branch that loves her and voting membership as a whole. As I mentioned, most of her nominations are not only the sole nod for the film, it’ll be the most obscure film of any on the list from studios you’ve never heard of. This is where I think she runs into a stopping point year after year. If Warren can align herself with a film that multiple branches will already have seen, and likely nominate elsewhere, she can get that win. No one wants it more than she does and no one works harder during campaign season for it than her. She’s her own grassroots supporter but what she needs is a studio (and a film) that will do more of the heavy lifting for her and give her the type of traditional campaign that can serve her better.
Greg P. Russell – 16 nominations across Sound Mixing and single Sound categories
His 17th nomination, for 2016’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, was rescinded after he broke campaign rules. This was his last nomination to date, making it the longest streak of his career without one since receiving his first, for 1989’s Black Rain.
While he did win an Emmy on his first nomination (for 2024’s Shōgun), it’s not just the Oscars that have said no to Russell. He’s also a 15-nominee with the Cinema Audio Society (CAS), the main guild for sound mixing, with no wins.
Russell isn’t alone a multiple nominee/never winner in the sound categories: sound mixer Rick Kline has earned 11 nominations for Best Picture winners like 1983’s Terms of Endearment and blockbusters like Top Gun (1986) and Air Force One (1997). Anna Behlmer was nominated 10 times for movies like Best Picture winner Braveheart (1995) and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005). Neither have been nominated since 2006 and 2009, respectively, making their prospects as future winners bleak.
Can he win? Russell hasn’t been back at the table since that rescinded nomination 10 years ago and I have to think that the branch could be punishing him a bit, he hasn’t done a lot of films since then that grab sound noms outside of 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight and 2024’s Better Man. A win seems like a longshot since he can’t even seem to get a nomination at this point.
Thomas Newman – 15 nominations across two categories (14 in variations of Original Score and its variations, 1 in Original Song)
From Desperately Seeking Susan to Finding Nemo to 1917, few composers have the range of genre that Thomas Newman has while still remaining identifiable and influential. Yet, at prolific and respected as his career is, the Academy keeps saying no.
Newman’s most egregious Oscar loss comes from losing for 1999’s American Beauty, a film which won five Oscars including Best Picture, to a film whose sole nomination was for its score (The Red Violin). His fourth nomination at the time, Newman wasn’t a newbie for either the music branch or the Academy at large. He won the BAFTA and a Grammy for the score so his loss here stings extra hard. John Corigliano, the composer for The Red Violin, hasn’t been nominated since his win. Despite his score now being one of the most iconic of the last 30 years, at the time it was compositionally “weird” and full of Eastern-influence for a film with ‘American’ in the title. It was ahead of its time and voters, while not playing it safe with awarding the film, did so here with a far more traditional score and one about music itself.
Newman’s number of losses are unfortunately amplified by the fact that his father, Alfred Newman, holds the record for a composer with nine wins for films like The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
Can he win? It’s been six years since Newman’s nomination for 1917, the longest gap in his career since his first in 1995, but his films since then haven’t exactly been the type that get in, even as a name brand nominee. He’s got the new Star Wars movie up next (taking over for 52-time nominee and 5-time winner John Williams) which could bring him back but as a winner? Doesn’t seem likely. I think there is a world where he can win, but every year it seems like it’s a galaxy far, far away.
Bradley Cooper – 12 nominations across five categories (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay)
12 nominations in the span of just 10 years is a remarkable feat for anyone. To do it in five different categories puts you in singular territory, a true one of one. So why has the Academy, who love actors turned directors, turned their back on Cooper every time?
There’s one glaring element in the dozen nominations that Cooper has amassed and it’s kind of a big deal. He’s missed Best Director on all three of his directorial efforts. Now, only his first two films, 2018’s A Star Is Born and 2023’s Maestro, were places where he was realistically contending (2025’s Is This Thing On? didn’t make a blip all season). He earned Best Director nods from Critics Choice and the Golden Globes for both films and double DGA nominations from the Directors Guild of America for A Star Is Born (first time director and the main theatrical award) but lost them all. The DGA first time feature loss was the biggest eye opener, losing to Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade. I have to think that there’s something to that that speaks to a larger pushback against him, specifically. His films have grossed $13 billion worldwide, and he has been placed in annual rankings of the world’s highest-paid actors four times. One wonders if maybe they see that as enough. Insert ‘that’s what the money’s for!’ Mad Men gif.
The Academy can be such a fickle bunch. They really want you to want to win, and to show it, but sometimes if you try too hard, they don’t like that either. Plenty of stars have played the campaign game hard and either won over to beaten down voters (like Kate Winslet or Eddie Redmayne), while others are able to let the performance stand on its own (like Mo’Nique or Sean Penn this season), but sometimes it’s about striking that balance and the scale is not weighed the same for everyone.
Can he win? Yes. At 51 years old, I have to imagine he’s got a long runway ahead of him with a wealth of opportunities to do it. But… he’ll have to stride a more tightrope of a campaign than most. He’ll need to want it, but not too much. Can’t be too aloof, voters are going to make him work for it.
Glenn Close – 8 nominations across two categories (4 in Best Actress, 4 in Supporting Actress)
It was the shrug heard ’round the world. It’s 2019 and Glenn Close had won Best Actress awards from Critics Choice, the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild for her performance in The Wife and then Frances McDormand opens the envelope and says ‘Ooliviaaa Collllmann’ in perhaps the longest stretch of six syllables as had ever been heard before or since. While Close had lost the BAFTA to Colman, she was still the odds on favorite to finally win after seven nominations (at the time) spanning 36 years. She had been, well, close before with 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons and her debut film performance in 1982’s The World According to Garp garnered her critical support as an ingenue. But it was The Wife that was supposed to clinch it for her. Going up against an actress on her first nomination in a film with 10 as a veteran whose nomination was the sole for her film, Close had an uphill battle but when you’re a sweeper (or near sweeper) it makes it a bit easier to overcome. Four years earlier, Julianne Moore triumphed as a sole nominee after she swept the precursors in a film and performance that voters said ‘it’s time’ about.
Can she win? Yes, but time is ticking. Sunset Blvd. keeps looking further and further away from actually happening so that’s not likely where it would come from. After scoring a nod for the wretched Hillbilly Elegy, it established that Close is incredibly formidable as a nominee. I think she will need to be an undeniable sweeper with no close competition (like Moore, or Jessie Buckley this year) to pull it off. I love Amy Madigan and her win but imagine if Close had played Aunt Gladys and pulled that off?
Amy Adams – 6 nominations across two categories (5 in Supporting Actress, 1 in Best Actress)
Ever since she burst onto the Oscar scene with 2005’s Junebug, you could sense that a likely future Oscar winner was born.
By the time 2016’s Arrival came around, Amy Adams had amassed five of her six nominations and her snub there was one of the few that happens every few years; hitting every precursor and then missing the Oscar nomination for someone with one or two, or even none. But ever since her last nomination, for 2018’s Vice, Adams has been fighting for her 7th but doing in projects of pretty epic failure. From Hillbilly Elegy to Dear Evan Hansen to Nightbitch, what looked good on paper just never materialized.
Can she win? Absolutely. While Adams isn’t quite at the level of Glenn Close, the age difference most certainly gives her the advantage. While the lion’s share of her nominations have come in supporting I think she could find a lead ‘woman of a certain age’ role that could be her ultimate ticket. Just don’t put her and Close against each other, the fandoms would not survive it.
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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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.
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