The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced this year’s Oscar nominees. In most years that would help solidify which films were the absolute frontrunners, but this remains one of the most open Oscar races for years. Guillermo Del Toro’s excellent The Shape Of Water leads the pack with an impressive 13 nominations (one short of the record of 14 nominations shared by Titanic, All About Eve and La La Land). However, that doesn’t mean it’s a shoo-in for the big awards, as many feel the likes of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and the acting category are likely to go to other movies.

Just to show how open a race it is, the second highest number of nominations went to Dunkirk, with eight, but few expect that film to pick up anything outsie the technical categories. More likely to be picking up some of the big gongs is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which scored seven nominations, including Best Film, Best Actress for Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell (many feel Rockwell is the most likely to win of all the acting nominess, but even with him there’s controversy over his character’s racism). However, despite many feeling Three Billboards has an extremely good shot at winning Best Picture, Martin McDonagh failed to get a Best Director nomination.

After several years of criticism for its lack of diversity, this year’s nominations did make some small steps towards sexual and racial equality, particularly in the Best Director category. McDonagh may have missed out on a Best Director nomination, but so did Steven Spielberg and several other major contenders. Instead, Jordan Peele is now the fifth African-American director to ever score a Best Director nomination for Get Out (none has ever won), while Greta Gerwig is the fifth woman in the same category (only Kathryn Bigelow has won). And following anger at how few black actors scored nominations in the last few years, this year Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.) and Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) were nominated for Best Actor, while Mary J. Blige (Mudbound) and Octavia Spencer (The Shape Of Water) are included in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Many have also noted there seems to have been swift professional retribution for James Franco, who emerged as one of the Best Actor frontrunners following his Golden Globe win for The Disaster Artist. However, he’s since been embroiled in allegations of harrassment and innapropriate behaviour, and has now failed to score a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

LGBT hopes were always going to be led by Call Me By Your Name. While it’s not been quite the awards powerhouse it looked like it might be early in the season, the gay romance nevertheless scored four nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Song and Best Screenplay. While many feel its best chance of a gong is for gay elder statesman James Ivory’s masterful screenplay, the Best Actor nomination for Timothee Chalamet is notable for another reason. At just 22 he’s the youngest Best Actor nominee since Mickey Rooney in 1939, and third youngest ever.

Many will be disappointed that there was no nomination for Armie Hammer. However, while he was the early frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actor category, others have since crowded him out – despite the fact in many other years there’s a good chance he’d have won.

Elsewhere the wonderful Chilean trans-themed film, A Fantastic Woman was nominated in the Best Foreign Language film category, while Richard Jenkins was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for playing a gay character in The Shape Of Water.

Take a look at the full list of nominations below. [Read more…]