Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic ‘Dune’ nabs 10 Oscar nominations
Posted February 8, 2022 8:35 am.
Last Updated February 8, 2022 11:04 am.
Quebec director Denis Villeneuve, Toronto costume designer Luis Sequeira and the National Film Board are among the Canadians to snag Oscar nominations.
Villeneuve’s sprawling sci-fi epic Dune is among the leading contenders overall with 10 nods, including nominations for Villeneuve in the best adapted screenplay and best picture categories.
The Toronto-born Sequeira earned his nod for best costume design on Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. Sequeira is a longtime collaborator of Del Toro’s, and was previously nominated for his work on 2017’s The Shape of Water.
Del Toro’s largely Canadian team for Nightmare Alley also received nominations for producer J. Miles Dale for best picture, and Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau for best production design.
The National Film Board co-production Affairs of the Art was nominated for best animated short while Nova Scotia’s Ben Proudfoot and his film The Queen of Basketball was nominated for best documentary short subject.
Villeneuve’s Dune also received nominations for best score, best cinematography, and more. Click here for a full list of the nominations.
The nominations were announced Tuesday. The 94th annual Academy Awards will air March 27.
Presenting the 94th #Oscars Nominations Show. #OscarNoms https://t.co/Zh1c00Anje
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 8, 2022
The Oscar nominations reflect a tumultuous pandemic year for Hollywood that began with many theaters shuttered and ended with Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man: No Way Home smashing box-office records.
In between, much of the normal rhythm of the movie business was transformed, as studios pushed some of the biggest movies of the year to streaming services in a bid to lure subscribers. Films including Dune (despite the objections of its director), Pixar’s Luca and King Richard were among those that went straight to homes.
As COVID-19 cases surged in the last two months due to the omicron variant, much of Oscar season also turned virtual. Last year, the pandemic led the academy to host a delayed Oscars in a socially distanced ceremony at Los Angeles’ Union Station. Ratings plummeted to an all-time low of 9.85 million viewers.
This year, the academy has yet to map out plans for its show, except that it will include a host for the first time since 2018. For better or worse, the Academy Awards will also be without its usual lead-in. The Golden Globes in January were an untelevised non-event after NBC said it wouldn’t air them in 2022 while the beleaguered Hollywood Foreign Press reformed itself after ethics and diversity criticism.
Other changes were more subtle but potentially impactful. For the first time, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences ruled out hard-copy DVD screeners for its members, who instead could watch submissions on the academy’s streaming platform.
