Nominations for the 2024 Oscar awards were announced on 23 January live from the Film Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A series of Asian names and titles are in the running in some major categories, including Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron and the monster film Godzilla Minus One.
The announcements were made by Jack Quaid and Zazie Beetz for all 23 categories, including best picture, best director, best actor, and best actress.
Oppenheimer, a strong favourite, received the highest nods with 13. It is in the running in almost all major categories except Best Actress. Poor Things and Killers of the Flower Moon follow with 11 and 10 nominations, respectively.
Barbie, the highest-grossing film of 2023, received eight nominations, including Best Picture. But Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were not nominated in the Best Actress and Best Director categories, respectively. The snub for the two has led to an uproar on social media. Gerwig, however, has been nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.
Interestingly, this will be the first Academy Awards where the films had to meet two of the four representation and inclusion standards set forth by the Academy to be able to run for the Best Picture nomination.
The 2024 Oscars ceremony will be on 10 March 2024 at the Dolby Theatre and will be broadcast live on ABC. The ceremony will be held from 4 pm – 7:30 pm PT / 7 pm – 10:30 pm ET.
Jimmy Kimmel will return as the host for the fourth time.
Asian nominations at the 2024 Oscar Awards
The 2023 Oscars was a major win for Asian cinema, with Everything Everywhere All at Once taking home the Best Picture as well as acting nods for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis; and writing and directing Oscars for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
Though a repeat of the feat is unlikely this year, it is expected that some Asian nominees in major categories will emerge winners.
Past Lives
Nominated for: Best Picture and Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Celine Song made her feature-length directorial debut with Past Lives. The film is semi-autobiographical and is written by Song. For the film, Song has already won a series of awards both as director and as a screenplay writer.
Past Lives stars Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro in pivotal roles. It is about two childhood friends in Korea who fall in love, but are forced to grow apart. Their lives intersect over the course of 24 years as they try to understand their love for each other, even though they cannot be together.
Perfect Days
Nominated for: Best International Feature Film
As a movie directed by German filmmaker Wim Wenders, Perfect Days has the unique distinction of being the first film by a non-Japanese director that Japan sent as the country’s official sentry in the Best International Feature Film category in more than 70 years of submissions to the Oscars.
The film’s cast includes Kōji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto and Arisa Nakano among others. It is about a Tokyo janitor, played by Yakusho, who is leading a life of contentment, satisfied with his job. He loves spending time with books and his music. His life takes a turn when he meets a young girl who asks him if he would like to see the ocean.
For his performance, Yakusho won the Best Actor prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Wenders, too, was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the event.
Godzilla Minus One
Nominated for: Best Visual Effects
Takashi Yamazaki’s kaiju movie Godzilla Minus One is one of the biggest box office successes in Japan in 2023. Made on a budget of just USD 15 million, the film has grossed around USD 100 million worldwide.
Featuring a large ensemble including Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, and Hidetaka Yoshioka among others, Godzilla Minus One is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise. It is about the monster of the seas wreaking havoc in post-war Japan
Yamazaki is a winner of six Japanese Academy Awards for Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005) and The Eternal Zero (2013). He wrote the story of Godzilla Minus One and created the visual effects of the film along with Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima. Thus, the Oscar nomination marks the first in his career.
The Boy and the Heron
Nominated for: Best Animated Film
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the anime film The Boy and the Heron is the strongest contender for the Oscar in the category it has been nominated in. The film has won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film and is in the running for a BAFTA in a similar category.
Universally hailed as one of the best films by Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron is about a 12-year-old boy named Mahito who is trying to come to terms with his mother’s death. He meets a talking heron, who tells him that his mother is alive. Mahito follows the heron to an abandoned tower and embarks on a strange adventure of a lifetime.
Miyazaki won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for Spirited Away (2001) and is a recipient of the Academy Honorary Award.
To Kill a Tiger
Nominated for: Best Documentary Feature Film
Nisha Pahuja, Cornelia Principe and David Oppenheim have been nominated for this significant Canadian documentary about a family in India’s Jharkhand state battling the society, the village, its leaders and all odds for justice after their teenage daughter was sexually assaulted by three men.
Pahuja is a renowned documentary filmmaker. Born in Delhi, she received an Emmy nomination for The World Before Her (2012).
Island in Between
Nominated for: Best Documentary Short Film
Island in Between captures the tension in Taiwan, as it finds itself in the middle of an escalating rift between China and the US. The documentary short film shows the rural Taiwanese outer islands of Kinmen, popular with tourists but just a few miles off the coast of China.
Its director, S. Leo Chiang, depicts the local life as well as tour group visits alongside his own thoughts on Taiwan, China and the US.
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
Nominated for: Best Documentary Short Film
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó is a film by first-generation Taiwanese American filmmaker Sean Wang. It is in Mandarin and English languages and is described as a “multigenerational story” that celebrates Sean Wang’s paternal and maternal grandmothers.
It won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the SXSW film festival and has since been on an award-winning spree. Wang also serves as the film’s producer, along with Sam Davis and Malcolm Pullinger.
Red, White and Blue
Nominated for: Best Live Action Short Film
Nazrin Choudhury is a British screenwriter and actress of Bangladeshi descent, best known as the writer and producer of post-apocalyptic horror drama Fear the Walking Dead (2020–2023).
Choudhury wrote and directed Red, White and Blue. The film’s logline reads: “A young mother from Arkansas is forced to travel across state lines in search of an urgent and necessary abortion.” Brittany Snow plays the lead role.
The film has been co-produced by Choudhury with Sara McFarlane.
(Hero and Featured images: IMDb)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who are the Asian Oscar nominees for 2024?
Among the top Asian nominees at the 2024 Oscars are Celine Song for Past Lives, Japanese film Perfect Days, Takashi Yamazaki and others for Godzilla Minus One, and Hayao Miyazaki for The Boy and the Heron.
Has an Asian ever been nominated for an Oscar?
According to The New York Times, only 23 of the 1,808 acting award nominees till the 2023 Oscars could be identified as Asian.
Which Asian movie won an Oscar?
Parasite (2019) is the only completely Asian movie that has won an Oscar for Best Picture.
Manas Sen Gupta writes at the intersection of tech, entertainment and history. His works have appeared in publications such as The Statesman, Myanmar Matters, Hindustan Times and News18/ETV. In his spare time, Manas loves studying interactive charts and topographic maps. When not doing either, he prefers reading detective fiction. Spring is his favourite season and he can happily eat a bowl of noodles any time of the day.
