Oscar nominations packed with firsts, but no clear best picture favorite

LOS ANGELES: Netflix’s 1930s Hollywood drama “Mank” led a diverse field of Oscar nominations on Monday packed with historic firsts but with no clear front-runner for the highest honors in the movie industry.

“Mank,” about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, got 10 nods, including best picture, director David Fincher and for actors Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried. But most of its nominations were in craft fields like sound design and make-up.

Six nods each were earned by the other best picture contenders “The Father,” Black Panther story “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Korean-language drama “Minari, “Nomadland,” #MeToo revenge tale “Promising Young Woman,” Amazon Studio deaf drama “Sound of Metal,” and 1960s Vietnam War courtroom drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”

Nine of the 20 acting nods went to non-white performers, including firsts for a Muslim actor (Riz Ahmed) and a South Korean (Yuh-Jung Youn of “Minari”), in what Variety described as the most diverse acting Oscars slate ever.

“Never in my dreams did I ever think a Korean actress would be nominated for an Oscar, and I can’t believe it’s me!” Youn, who plays a mischievous granny, said in a statement.

Fellow cast member Steven Yeun and director Lee Isaac Chung, both Korean-Americans, also got nominations for the moving story of an immigrant Korean family trying to start a farm in the United States in the 1980s.

A record 76 nominations went to women, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said. For the first time in the 93-year history of the Oscars, two women will compete in the five-person best director race that has long been a male stronghold.

They are Chinese-born director Chloe Zhao for Searchlight Pictures’ “Nomadland” about modern van dwellers in the United States, and British director Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman.” Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to have won a best director Oscar.

“Sobbing,” Fennell wrote on Twitter.

Vanessa Kirby, nominated for a playing a grieving mother in “Pieces of a Woman” said she was honored to be part of the female lineup.