‘Drive My Car,’ Steven Spielberg, And Jane Campion All Made Oscars History With This Year’s Nominations

There’s one Oscar record that’s unlikely to be broken this year: most awards won by a single film. The current record is 11 set by 1959’s Ben-Hur, 1997’s Titanic, and 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but only one film was even nominated in 11 categories for the 94th Academy Awards: The Power of the Dog, with 12. But considering Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee are both up for Best Supporting Actor, that would mean Jane Campion’s gothic Western would have to win every other award it’s nominated for. That’s doubtful (but not impossible!) to happen.

A lot of other Oscars history was made this morning, though, including:

-Steven Spielberg is the first director to be nominated for Best Director in six different decades (1970s: Close Encounters of the Third Kind; 1980s: Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; 1990s: Schindler’s List, which he won, and Saving Private Ryan, which he also won; 2000s: Munich; 2010s: Lincoln; and 2020s: West Side Story).

–Jane Campion is the first female filmmaker to be up for Best Director twice

–Drive My Car is the first Japanese film to be nominated in more than one category

–Flee is the first film to ever be nominated for Best Animated Feature Film, Best International Feature Film, and Best Documentary Feature

-Denzel Washington extended his own record as the most-nominated Black actor in Oscars history with his 10th nomination for The Tragedy of Macbeth.

–CODA star Troy Kotsur is the first deaf male actor to be nominated for an Oscar, and only the second deaf actor overall after Marlee Matlin for Children of a Lesser God

-Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Best Original Song nomination for “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto puts him one step closer to an EGOT. He already has the Emmy, Grammy, and Tony

-At 87, Judi Dench is the oldest nominee in Best Supporting Actress history

-Ariana DeBose and Kristen Stewart getting recognized for West Side Story and Spencer, respectively, marks the first time that two openly queer people have been nominated for acting Oscars in the same year

-Jared Leto wasn’t even nominated for his, um, unique performance in House of Gucci, preventing Nintendo from winning the company’s first Oscar

— Lindsay Zoladz (@lindsayzoladz) February 8, 2022

You can find the full list of nominees here.