Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday amid what’s proving to be an unpredictable and highly political awards season.
The fantasy film “The Shape of Water” led with 13 Academy Award nominations, including best picture.
The other best picture nominees are “Lady Bird, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” “The Post,” “Get Out, “Dunkirk,” “Darkest Hour,” “Call Me By Your Name” and “Phantom Thread.”
Best actor nominees are Gary Oldman for “Darkest Hour,” Timothée Chalamet for “Call Me By Your Name,” Daniel Day-Lewis for “Phantom Thread,” Daniel Kaluuya for “Get Out ” and Denzel Washington for “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
Best actress nominees are Frances McDormand for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” Saoirse Ronan for “Lady Bird,” Sally Hawkins for “The Shape of Water,” Meryl Streep for “The Post” and Margot Robbie “I, Tonya.”
Jordan Peele earned a best director nomination for his social-justice thriller “Get Out,” becoming only the fifth African-American director nominated in that category.
Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming-of-age story “Lady Bird,” is also the fifth woman ever to be nominated for a best director Oscar.
They were joined in their category by Guillermo Del Toro for “The Shape of Water”, Christopher Nolan for “Dunkirk” and Paul Thomas Anderson for “Phantom Thread.”
With her nomination for best supporting actress for her role in “The Shape of Water,” Octavia Spencer makes history as the first African-American actress to receive multiple nominations after a win. Spencer won in that category for “The Help” in 2012 and was nominated for “Hidden Figures” in 2017.
Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), Laurie Metcalf (“Lady Bird “) Lesley Manville (“Phantom Thread”) and Mary J. Blige (“Mudbound”) join Spencer as supporting actress nominees.
Peele and Spencer’s accomplishments are sure to be fodder for the ongoing discussion about diversity in Hollywood, both in front of and behind the camera.
Related: Will Academy Award nominations be ‘#OscarsSoWhite 3.0’?
Christopher Plummer earned a nomination for best supporting actor for a role that was not originally his.
Plummer stepped in for Kevin Spacey in “All the Money in the World” after Spacey faced accusations of sexual misconduct.
Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”, Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”) Richard Jenkins (“The Shape of Water”) and Woody Harrelson (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) were also nominated.
James Franco’s film “The Disaster Artist” was nominated for best adapted screenplay, along with “Call Me By Your Name,” “Mudbound,” “Molly’s Game” and “Logan.”
But Franco, who was recently accused by five women of inappropriate and sometimes sexually exploitative behavior, was not nominated.
The actor has denied the allegations.
The Oscars come as the entertainment industry reckons with sexual harassment and gender inequality issues, unleashed by allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein and a host of others.
Tiffany Haddish, Andy Serkis and Academy President John Bailey announced the nominees in a live digital stream, with some assistance from previous Oscar winners.
The Academy’s accounting firm PwC, which calculates the Oscar ballots and secures the winner envelopes, have announced new procedures for the ceremony to avoid another envelope mixup. Human error at last year’s show led to “La La Land” mistakenly being named the best picture winner before the actual winner, “Moonlight,” was announced.
Late-night star Jimmy Kimmel is returning to host the Academy Awards, set for Sunday, March 4, 2018 on ABC.