Osage Singer Scott George on His Oscar-Nominated ‘Flower Moon’ Song: ‘I’m Asking My People to Stand Up…Be Tall and Be Proud’

Jordan Moreau Put on your pinkest “Barbie” dress or grayest “Oppenheimer” suit, because the 2024 Oscars are finally here. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel for the second year in a row, the 96th Academy Awards are honoring the top movies from 2023, with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” leading the pack with 13 nominations.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In a strange reversal of a longstanding trend with the Academy, this year’s documentary short ballot is almost entirely domestic (which is to say, films made by or about Americans), while the feature doc category — where subtitles aren’t so common — is entirely international. Judging by the overall quality of the films in the 141-minute “2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary” lineup, that’s no sign of compromise. In fact, for Oscar completists, ShortsTV’s annual roundup is one of the most rewarding theatrical experiences audiences could hope for this year.

Casting Society Artios Awards. The ceremony honors top casting in the year’s films, TV and theater.

Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Past Lives and Barbie were among the film winners are the 39th Artios Awards, which the Casting Society handed out Thursday in three ceremonies spanning two continents. See the full winners list below.

Tatiana Siegel When it comes to Apple’s Hollywood ambitions, it’s all about spending big to win big. On March 10, the tech giant has 13 shots to take home an Oscar via two historical epics, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon,” which nabbed 10 and three nominations, respectively. That’s given Apple the second-biggest haul among the major studios and streamers, just behind Netflix’s 18 nods.

Jaden Thompson Indigenous stories aren’t always told with the care, nuance and authenticity they deserve in Hollywood, and, more often than not, their stories aren’t told at all. While “Killers of the Flower Moon” has certainly prompted discourse within indigenous communities about who should tell what stories, the Osage Nation Congress has unanimously endorsed the creative contributions that Lily Gladstone and Scott George made to the film. The tribal governing body recently passed bills expressing support for their roles in Martin Scorsese’s historical epic.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic If the Academy judged features by the same standards that they do live action shorts, the best picture ballot would be full of starry, quasi-political issue movies: well-meaning but manipulative films like “Father Stu” and “The Janes.” In this category, it’s the message that matters to Oscar voters, which makes this year’s “2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action” program (available in theaters and on demand from ShortsTV) one of the most frustrating lineups in recent memory. Or it would, if not for the presence of one genuinely brilliant, liberatingly unserious nominee among them.

Julio Torres’s directorial debut Problemista from A24 posted the highest per-screen average of the weekend with a solid limited opening, grossing $140.9k on five screens in New York and LA with multiple sold out Q&As.

If you are aiming to win your Oscar pool you may feel relatively safe right about now predicting, as most are, a sweep by Oppenheimer, especially after its overwhelming showing last week winning 7 BAFTA awards, the DGA honor for Christopher Nolan the week before that, and on Saturday sweeping 3 of the 5 movie awards at SAG and winning top prize at PGA last night. However key to actually winning your pool will not be those marquee feature film categories but rather the three for shorts that run under the radar, but can spell the difference in triumphing over all others in whatever pool you enter. So who could – or should for these purposes – prevail in the Documentary, Animated, and Live Action shorts contests this year? Shorts TV in association with distributor Magnolia Pictures has, as usual. put all of them in theatrical release in theatres across the country, so if you are lucky you could have the chance to see the three different programs offered on the big screen. Some, like MTV’s The ABC’s Of Book Banning are available for free on You Tube, and some are available on the various streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon, Apple. I have seen all 15 of the films spread across these categories with 5 nominees each. Here is my take on the artistic merits of each.

Martin Scorsese accepted the PGA’s David O. Selznick Achievement Award tonight and took the Hollywood & Highland Ovation Ballroom down memory lane — about 60 years ago, when he accepted a PGA award for his student film, It’s Not Just You, Murray!, at the ripe age of 22 years old.

Major news today for Oscar-nominee To Kill a Tiger. Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas is joining the award-winning feature documentary as an executive producer, alongside Dev Patel, Mindy Kaling, and other bold-faced names. The news comes as Netflix inks a deal to launch the film globally on its platform soon.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Audiences will get a chance to see MTV Documentary Films‘ Oscar nominated short documentary “The ABCs of Book Banning” for free on YouTube beginning on Feb. 23 until the end of the month. The 27-minute film, about the rising tide of book banning efforts around the United States, marks docu titan Sheila Nevins‘ directorial debut.

Italy’s Best International Feature Oscar-nominated Io Capitano starts its U.S. run today in ten market on 21 screens, a bit wider than usual for Cohen Media Group but with Academy final voting just started, reviews are gold for the odyssey that director Matteo Garrone calls “a movie about human rights. About the rights of everybody to move, to look for a better life.”

Matt Sweeney, a pioneering special effects artist who was Oscar-nominated for his work on Ron Howard’s 1995 space epic Apollo 13, died February 19 of lung cancer at Burbank’s Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center. He was 75.

Martin Scorsese was making “Silence,” his 2016 drama about a pair of Jesuit priests spreading the gospel in Japan, a typhoon hit the area, bringing with it biblical showers. As the filmmaker braced himself for news that the bad weather would mean he’d have to abandon plans to shoot that day, there was a rap on his trailer door. There stood Rodrigo Prieto, Scorsese’s long-time cinematographer, outfitted in heavy rain gear.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Oscar-nominated artisans in the race landed historical firsts in numerous categories. After decades in the industry, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick earned her first nod for “Oppenheimer.” Scott George became the first Osage Nation songwriter to be nominated for his song in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” while Diane Warren scored a record 15th nod. John Williams bested his record-breaking achievement when he was recognized for original score.

The LAUSD Education Foundation is embarking on a major capital campaign to benefit the musical instrument repair operation documented in the Oscar-nominated film The Last Repair Shop.

Christopher Vourlias Oscar nominee Abderrahmane Sissako (“Timbuktu”) returns to the screen for the first time in nearly a decade with his latest feature, “Black Tea,” a lushly lensed romantic drama about a love spanning cultural divides that world premieres Feb. 21 in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Joining me in the Apple Original Films portion of Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees were several Oscar nominees for Martin Scorsese’s epic Western Killers of the Flower Moon, and since the film has been nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards it was a good cross-section of artisans who made this very big film come to life.

The Oscar-nominated artisans from Ridley Scott‘s epic Napoleon joined me as part of Apple Original Films‘ presentations at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event. Veteran production designer Arthur Max and costume designers Janty Yates and David Crossman talked extensively about what it was like to work with Sir Ridley on the ambitious, large-scale production that saw Joaquin Phoenix play Napoleon Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby his wife Josephine.