Oscar Shortlists: Apes, Pop Stars and ’60s Hair Battle in FX, Music and Makeup Categories

Final exams have rarely taken a heavier toll than they do in Better Days, an arresting teen-oriented story that cranks Chinese scholastic competitiveness into the realm of murderous melodrama.

Italy’s Piedmont region is a country for old men, to judge from the new documentary The Truffle Hunters.

Neon’s boutique label Super Ltd has picked up North American rights to buzzy Bosnian drama Quo Vadis, Aida?, which is on this year’s shortlist for the International Oscar.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today is widely acknowledged as a hero, a martyr in the long struggle to end racial prejudice and inequality in America.

People are talking about H.E.R., who recently rocked Super Bowl LV with a soulful rendition of "America the Beautiful" (with a guitar solo that would have made Prince smile) and whose groovy throwback "Fight for You" can be heard in Warner Bros.' Judas and the Black Messiah, about the 1969 police assassination of Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton.

When documentary maker Alexander Nanau started filming a team of investigative journalists in the aftermath of a tragic fire, no one knew the staggering level of corruption they would uncover. The blaze at Bucharest’s Colectiv club in 2015 left 27 dead and 180 injured. When more burn victims began dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life-threatening, the Romanian newspaper Sports Gazette started probing into the health service.

Next time someone asks what’s good on Netflix, you might want to point them to this winner that’s been lurking there since January 2020. A victor at the Golden Horse Awards and now shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar, A Sun is a bold, involving tale of crime, punishment, tragedy and healing — all within a seemingly ordinary family of four in Taiwan.

This year’s Oscar Original Song shortlist has recognized a number of tunes from Black narrative or documentary films, however, the Academy has never ducked their heads when it comes to embracing a silly song; and we’re talking specifically about “Wuhan Flu” from Amazon’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and “Husavik” from Netflix’s Will Ferrell-Rachel McAdams comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. 

There’s still a ton of mystery about what will receive Oscar nominations this year, but today a tiny bit of that disappeared. Yes, the Academy announced nine category shortlists, helping to let us know who and what are still in contention below the line.

Best Animated Short “Burrow” “Genius Loci” “If Anything Happens I Love You” “Kapaemahu” “Opera” “Out” “The Snail and the Whale” “To Gerard” “Traces” “Yes-People”Best Live-Action Short “Bittu” “Da Yie” “Feeling Through” “The Human Voice” “The Kicksled Choir” “The Letter Room” “The Present” “Two Distant Strangers” “The Van” “White Eye” 

The Oscar shortlists are out in nine categories including International Film, Documentary Feature, Music Score and Song, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects and Shorts. These are the first indicator of strength in the race for the 93rd Annual Academy Awards and, though the lists contain few real surprises, is especially good news for those films that are mentioned more than once.

Also Read: Oscars Reveal Record-Breaking Lists of Contenders in Documentary, International Categories‘Time’ / Amazon StudiosBEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Ever since the Documentary Branch rules were changed to do away with the small committees that previously viewed films in the preliminary round of voting, the documentary shortlists have invariably contained almost all of the films that received the most buzz and the most precursor awards.Front-runners: Garrett Bradley’s “Time,” the most honored

Clare Crawley got candid with fans about her struggles with anxiety less than two weeks after her public split from Dale Moss.

Michelle Pfeiffer is taking a trip down memory lane.

Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here (Ya No Estoy Aquí) had a long journey to the screen — conceived when Frias was a student at New York’s Columbia University, the project was selected by the Sundance Writers Lab in 2014, and went before cameras in 2017, ultimately hitting the festival circuit in 2019, and Netflix last year. Challenges in getting the acclaimed drama made included everything from financing hurdles to a lengthy hiatus and the lead actor being rejected for a U.S.

Oscar and Emmy winning make-up artist Matthew Mungle and Emmy-winning hair stylistTerry Balielwill receive Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 8th annual Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards(IATSE Local 706), which will be presented as a virtual celebration on April 3. Mungle won an Oscar as part of the team onBram Stoker’sDracula, and he earned additional Academy Award nominationsforSchindler’s List,Ghosts of Mississippi and Albert Nobbs.

Guy Lodge Film CriticFor the past two years, the Oscar race for international feature hasn’t been a race at all. With Mexico’s “Roma” and South Korea’s “Parasite” heavyweight contenders for best picture, the lower-profile award became a done deal.