Oscars Race Clearer After DGA, WGA, PGA Awards Nominations

Tick, Tick... BOOM! Oscars 2022

After the announcement of the nominations for the DGA, WGA, and PGA Awards 2022, we now have a clearer picture of what the Oscars nominees will be. We will focus solely on the feature film nominations.

 

We start with the PGA Awards, which give us a hint at the Best Picture line-up at the Oscars. The Producers have nominated in the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures the following movies:

 

Being the Ricardos, produced by Todd Black.

Belfast, produced by Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas

CODA, produced by Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, Patrick Wachsberger.

Don’t Look Up, produced by Adam McKay, Kevin Messick

Dune, produced by Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Denis Villeneuve

King Richard, produced by Tim White, Trevor White, Will Smith

Licorice Pizza, produced by Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson, Adam Somner

The Power of the Dog, produced by Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Roger Frappier

Tick, Tick… Boom!, produced by Julie Oh, Lin-Manuel Miranda

West Side Story, produced by Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger

 

In the category of Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures, the five nominees are:

 

Encanto, produced by Yvett Merino, Clark Spencer

Luca, produced by Andrea Warren

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, produced by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Kurt Albrecht

Raya and the Last Dragon, produced by Osnat Shurer, Peter Del Vecho

Sing 2, produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy

 

Here are DGA’s nominees in the category of Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film:

 

Paul Thomas Anderson, for Licorice Pizza

Kenneth Branagh, for Belfast

Jane Campion, for The Power of the Dog

Steven Spielberg, for West Side Story

Denis Villeneuve, for Dune

 

In the category of Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director, the Directors Guild of America nominated:

 

Maggie Gyllenhaal, for The Lost Daughter

Rebecca Hall, for Passing

Tatiana Huezo, for Prayers for the Stolen

Lin-Manuel Miranda, for Tick, Tick… Boom!

Michael Sarnoski, for Pig

Emma Seligman, for Shiva Baby

 

Last but not least, the Writers Guild of America have selected the following movies for the category of Original Screenplay:

 

Aaron Sorkin, for Being the Ricardos

Adam Mckay, for Don’t Look Up; story by Adam McKay and David Sirota

Wes Anderson, for The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun; story by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, Jason Schwartzman

Zach Baylin, for King Richard

Paul Thomas Anderson, for Licorice Pizza

 

And in the category of Adapted Screenplay, the WGA nominated:

 

Siân Heder, for CODA

Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, for Dune

Guillermo del Toro, and Kim Morgan for Nightmare Alley

Steven Levenson for Tick, Tick… Boom!

Tony Kushner, for West Side Story

 

Simultaneous with the announcement of the nominees, voting for the Oscars opened Thursday, Jan. 27, and will close Tuesday, Feb. 1. Right now, it is very likely our ten Best Picture nominees will be the ten movies above nominated by the PGA. There are a few other wild horses like The Tragedy of Macbeth or The Lost Daughter, but they are very unlikely to get a nomination. Marvel Studios and Sony also had their shot with Spider-Man: No Way Home, but it looks like it wasn’t enough, though we never know. MGM’s No Time to Die looked to be the likely popcorn movie to get a Best Picture nomination, but it’s now lost a lot of steam.

 

As far as the Best Director category goes, it’s also pretty much locked, and it will be the five directors nominated by the DGA. It is still nice, though, that they have noticed Rebecca Hall’s work in Passing and nominated her in the First-Time Director category — she will probably not get recognized at the Oscars, but at least she got a nomination here. That category probably belongs to Maggie Gyllenhaal, though, who is probably one of the few runner-ups to land a Best Director nomination if one of the five doesn’t make it.

 

The WGA, however, decided to spice things up this year. Belfast is getting less love from the guilds than many anticipated, after SAG skipped a number of guaranteed nominations from that movie a few weeks ago, and now the WGA is not cutting Branagh any slack. They gave the nomination to Wes Anderson instead, and it will be interesting to see whether he still manages to be nominated for the Oscars, or if the Academy does show some love for Branagh’s personal tale.

 

As far as the adapted screenplay category is concerned, it looks like Tick, Tick… Boom! gained the favor of the WGA, and not so much The Lost Daughter. These two spots are pretty much the only ones to have an eye on when the Oscar nominations are announced. Both lists are pretty much on point otherwise.

 

The 94th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on February 8, so make sure to come back for our commentary on that. Right now, even though we can predict most nominees, we have absolutely no idea who will win any of the awards, so we are gonna have a great time until the end of March — the ceremony will take place on March 27.