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For the first time in 47 years, all five Best Actress Oscar nominees hail from Best Picture nominees.

The Best Actress lineup was the top five in the odds: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), and Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here). Four of those films were widely predicted to score Best Picture nominations except for I’m Still Here, which was in 13th place in the odds; but in the biggest surprise of the day, the Brazilian feature made the cut on Thursday. The other Best Picture nominees are The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, and Nickel Boys.

The last time the Best Actress and Best Picture lineups aligned was during the 1977-78 season when Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) won Best Actress over Jane Fonda (Julia), Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl), and The Turning Point stars Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine.

The dust still hasn’t settled on the 96th annual Academy Award nominations due to the uproar over the “Barbie” snubs for Best Actress for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig for Best Director. They still earned Oscar nominations for the cultural phenomena that was the No. 1 film of 2023 with an international box office of $1.4 billion. Robbie and Gerwig received noms as producer for the Best Picture nominee and Gerwig also was garnered a nomination for co-writing the adapted screenplay. But the film is about female empowerment, so it’s beyond ironic it was Ken (Ryan Gosling), not Barbie, who received Oscar recognition.

Gosling wasn’t happy: “Against all odds with nothing but a couple of soulless, scantily clad, and thankfully crotchless dolls, made us laugh, they broke our hearts, they pushed the culture and made history. Their work should be recognized along with the other very deserving nominees.”

America Ferrera,...

For the second time in six years, the Best Actress category looked to be on track to feature nominees from films nominated for Best Picture. But just like six years ago, it came up short — and it once again involved Margot Robbie.

Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) made the Best Actress cut on Tuesday. Every film but “Nyad” is nominated for Best Picture. Gladstone, Hüller, Mulligan and Stone were all expected to get in, but Bening was in seventh place in the odds. Now a five-time nominee, she made it in over Robbie, who was in fifth place in the odds and headlines Best Picture nominee “Barbie” (Robbie is nominated as producer).

Six years ago, it was the reverse situation with Robbie. She earned her first career Oscar nomination for her...

For the second consecutive year and 13th time ever, the present Best Picture Oscar lineup consists of an even 10 nominees. As has been the case since 2009, the winner will be decided by a preferential voting system. Over the past 13 years, only twice — at the ceremonies for the films of 2014 and 2018 — has every Best Picture contender won something. An annual average of 2.4 films recognized in the top category during the period wound up with zero trophies, with the biggest shutout having affected five of the nine 2013 nominees. Since several films in this year’s group have reached the point where they’d be lucky to pull off one win apiece, that preferential era record could easily be matched or even broken.

The films competing for the 2022 Best Picture Oscar have a collective total of 65 nominations across 18 categories. According to Gold Derby’s current odds, the most-recognized movie of the year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,...

In 2009 — when the Academy Awards went to 10 Best Picture nominees for the first time since 1943 — the preferential system of voting, which had been used from 1934 to 1945, was reintroduced. The academy did so as it believed this “best allows the collective judgment of all voting members to be most accurately represented.”

We have detailed how the preferential voting system works at the Oscars in the modern era. So, let’s take a look back at those dozen years early in the history of the academy when it first used this complicated counting to determine the Best Picture winner rather than a simple popular vote. (At the bottom of this post, be sure to vote for the film that you think will take the top Oscar this year.)

See Best Picture Gallery: Every winner of the top Academy Award

1934

This seventh ceremony marked the first time that the Oscars eligibility period was the calendar year.

Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...

'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...

First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings and first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM (photo: Emil Jannings in 'The Last Command') First Best Actor Academy Award winner Emil Jannings in The Last Command, first Best Actress Academy Award winner Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, and sisters Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge are a few of the silent era performers featured this evening on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its Silent Monday presentations. Starting at 5 p.m. Pt / 8 p.m. Et on November 17, 2014, get ready to check out several of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s. Following the Jean Negulesco-directed 1943 musical short Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties -- believe me, even the most rabid anti-gay bigot will be able to enjoy this one -- TCM will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) one of the two movies that earned...

Actor who played Bert Lynch in BBC police drama Z-Cars and appeared in shows ranging from Doctor Who to Nightingales

The actor James Ellis (also known as Jimmy), who has died aged 82, was the longest-serving original cast member of the hugely popular BBC television series Z-Cars. When Z-Cars began in 1962, it represented a major change in the way the police were characterised in fiction. The BBC police series Dixon of Dock Green had been running for seven years, with Jack Warner playing the understanding, avuncular police constable Dixon. Z-Cars, by contrast, had the actors Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor making cynical remarks about the death of a murdered police colleague whose funeral they were attending, and Ellis, as Constable Bert Lynch, hearing from a colleague how he beats up his wife, without doing anything about it. Z-Cars attempted to show how moral anarchy in the rundown industrial area of the...

It's Norma Shearer's birthday today. Make an old movie wish!

Here's mine: I wish all movies were available in all formats for very reasonable prices. (Like, come on, I wanna see The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934, Best Actress/Best Picture nominee) but I'm not paying $20 for a used VHS copy!) It's the least Hollywood could do with their billions.

Elizabeth Hartman and Sidney Poitier in A Patch of Blue (1965)

Look, I can't help it: The Oscars rule. I care about them. I refuse to stop thinking about them. And if you read snicks' recent Oscar snubs piece, you'd refuse too. If you love entertainment, glamor, and winning, you simply have to love the Oscars. And Project Runway. But hey, back to the Oscars! Even the biggest Oscarphiles can stand to know more about the precious gold statuette, and I'm willing to bet most of you don't know about these five nominees, actresses who've faded from public consciousness. Let's revisit the weird and wild catacombs of the Academy's most fascinating forgotten ladies, shall we?

Eva Le Gallienne: Respected Actress, Kickass Lesbian

Before Gloria Stuart hurled an ugly diamond into the Atlantic in Titanic, Eva Le Gaillienne was the oldest woman nominated for an Oscar at age 80 for Resurrection, a...

Maureen O'Sullivan (Jane), Cheeta, Johnny Weismuller (Tarzan): MGM in the '30s Cheeta, Tarzan's chimp in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), died of kidney failure during the week of December 19 according to Florida's Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. Sad news — and curious news as well. The Associated Press reports that chimps in captivity live between 40 and 60 years. Cheeta, oftentimes spelled as Cheetah, would have been 80. Also, more than one chimp played Cheeta in the various Tarzan movies. One of those, known as either Jiggs or Mr. Jiggs, is supposed to have died of pneumonia at a very young age in 1938, the year he co-starred with Dorothy Lamour in Her Jungle Love. (Actually, Ray Milland, not Jiggs, was Lamour's paramour in that movie.) And finally, according to Suncoast's outreach director Debbie Cobb, MGM's Tarzan Johnny Weismuller donated Cheeta to the sanctuary back in 1960. But did olympic swimmer Weismuller...

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it.s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it.s the year that the headline is from. It.s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 25th successful year! Steve and I collaborated last Spring on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and I’ve been writing a regular monthly movie-related column since then. Since there is no on-line version of The Globe, I will be posting all of my articles here at We Are Movie Geeks. When Steve informed me that this month.s St. Louis Globe-Democrat was to take place in 1939, often labeled “Hollywood’s Greatest Year”, I knew the possibilities were immense.

Omero Antonutti, Saverio Marconi, Padre Padrone John Gielgud, Charles Laughton The Barretts Of Wimpole Street: Father's Day Movies Based on Gavino Ledda's autobiography, Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani's father-son drama Padre Padrone (1977) portrays the difficult, complex relationship between a young Sardinian man (Saverio Marconi) and his reactionary, ruthlessly domineering father (Omero Antonutti). The setting is 20th-century rural Italy, but it might as well have been the Italy of the Middle Ages or earlier. The film's title literally translates as "Father Proprietor/Boss." Padre Padrone won both the Palme d'Or and the International Film Critics' Fipresci Prize at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, it [...]...

John Gielgud, Jennifer Jones, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) Top Father's Day Movies In The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Charles Laughton and John Gielgud play the, ahem, doting fathers in, respectively, the 1934 and 1957 versions. Laughton's performance as the domineering Edward Moulton-Barrett is by far the better of the two; yet, Gielgud is the one who makes Moulton-Barrett's incestuous attraction to his daughter Elizabeth Barrett (Jennifer Jones) much more clear. Sidney Franklin directed both versions. Norma Shearer and Fredric March were the lovers in the 1934 movie; Bill Travers courted Jennifer Jones in the remake. In my view, both films are of [...]...

Hollywood star who won an Oscar for her role as a saintly peasant girl in the 1943 film The Song of Bernardette

On the day of her 25th birthday, 2 March 1944, a fresh-faced, hitherto unknown performer stepped on to the stage of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Los Angeles, to receive her best actress Oscar for her performance in the title role of The Song of Bernadette. It was officially the debut of Jennifer Jones, who has died aged 90. She had appeared four years earlier under her real name of Phyllis Isley, but only in a Dick Tracy serial and a B-western. (Actually, she had been born Phylis, but had added an "l".)

Ingrid Bergman, nominated for her performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls, said of The Song of Bernadette: "I cried all the way through, because Jennifer was so moving and because I realised I had lost the award." Jones,...