NEW YORK — Winner of the Susan Lucci award for perseverance (directing division)
Martin Scorsese's Oscar nomination for best director is his sixth in that category after Raging Bull (1981), The Last Temptation of Christ (1989), Goodfellas (1991), Gangs of New York (2003) and The Aviator (2005). No other director has been nominated as many times and failed to win. Scorsese has twice lost to first-time directors (Robert Redford, Ordinary People, 1981; Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolves, 1989), so the absence of first-timers this time around may help his chances.
Winner of the Susan Lucci award for perseverance
(acting division)
(Scott Olson/AFP/Getty Images)
Related Articles
Internet Links
- Test your Oscar trivia
- Guess the dress: Test your Oscar fashion IQ
- Liam Lacey on the best picture nominees
- Photogallery: Oscar's most outrageous moments
- Oscar poll: See you how you compare
- Photogallery: And the nominees are...
- Globe Oscar contest
- Full list of Oscar nominations
Peter O'Toole's nomination makes this the eighth time he will make a run for the best-actor statuette. No actor has received as many nominations and never won.
Everyone loves a newcomer
Jennifer Hudson is the first person to be nominated in the supporting-actress category for a performance debut since Anna Paquin was nominated (and won) the award for her turn in The Piano (1994).
Can members of the academy read?
Letters from Iwo Jima is only the eighth foreign-language film to be nominated for best picture. The previous seven were Grand Illusion (1938), Z (1969), The Emigrants (1972), Cries and Whispers (1973), Il Postino (1995), Life Is Beautiful (1998) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). None has won.
There's Hollywood, and there's Bollywood, and never the twain shall meet.
Water, which is Canada's nominee in the foreign-language film category, faces some very tough odds: No Hindi-language film has ever been nominated, never mind taken home the award. And, oh yes, no movie has ever before won the statuette unless it used one of the main languages of its home country.
Are we still counting?
Meryl Streep set a record yesterday with her work in The Devil Wears Prada, earning her 14th Oscar nomination. (Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson each have 12 nominations.) Streep has taken home the statue twice. (Hepburn won four times, Nicholson three times.)
She's nipping at Meryl's heels
Only 31 years old, Kate Winslet is the youngest performer to have earned five acting nominations. Olivia de Havilland was 33 when she was nominated her fifth time, for The Heiress (1949). Streep was an ancient 34 when she was nominated for Silkwood (1984).
Who says Americans don't like foreigners?
The nomination of four non-U.S.-born actresses (Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz) in the best-actress category makes this the 15th year in a row that at least one foreign actress has been included in the final five.
Hollywood loves indie films, especially when they earn $60-million (U.S.) at the box office
Little Miss Sunshine is the first film to be picked up at the Sundance Film Festival to be nominated for best picture.
And we always thought it would be Britney
Ryan Gosling is the first former cast member of The Mickey Mouse Club (either the 1950s or 1990s incarnation) to be up for an acting Oscar.
113
