The 2022 Oscar nominations’ snubs, surprises, and Lady Gaga crisis

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMMA) announced Tuesday morning the nominees for the Oscar 2022. The lineup of nominees was full of predicted picks, but also plenty of surprises — and even a few disappointing snubs.

Netflix’s Dog PowerWith 12 nominations leading the announcement, followed closely by Dune With 10. The un-seen Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story7th place for remake A few movies that might have been in the Oscar season had higher expectations but were not able to make it this morning. House of GucciOnly one nomination was made for Makeup and Hairstyling. Not a single Best Actress nominee came from any Best Picture-nominated movie.

These are the top and most shocking Academy Award nominees for 2022:

Lady Gaga did not receive a Best Actress nomination

Lady Gaga is the first of many snubs. This popstar and actress was nominated for the award because of her performance in House of Gucci going into the announcements, but this morning seems to have been replaced with Kristen Stewart’s nomination for Spencer.

Gaga followed a Best Actress win at the New York Film Critics Circle with nominations at this year’s (nearly invisible) Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the BAFTAs, all of which shut out Stewart. While both actresses were terrific and likely deserved nominations, it seems only one of them could take home a nomination since they didn’t don a full set of prosthetics and makeup like Jessica Chastain in Tammy Faye’s Eyes. (And yet the extra layers didn’t help Jared Leto pickup a Supporting Actor nom for his work in Gucci …)

What the good and what the bad about Best Director

Warner Bros. Pictures

Another positive surprise this year was the success of Japan’s Oscar submission, Drive My Car. While international movies are a few years past having to prove themselves as viable Oscar candidates — see: RomaAnd Parasite — this three-hour long meditation on grief out of Japan was still only expected to get one nomination for Best International Feature. Instead it took home four including Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who also made this year’s fantastic The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy.

Denis Villeneuve was the director in question. This is a big snub in this year’s directing category. DuneThe nomination was not made for. Dune was dominant on the technical side of the Oscars this year, earning 10 nominations — a somewhat shocking feat to accomplish without a Best Director nomination.

Netflix’s has another shot at the top prize

Another thing that stands out from this year’s Academy Award nominations is the position of Netflix. While it didn’t necessarily dominate with a wide range of movies, Dog Power is clearly this year’s frontrunner at the awards. This shouldn’t come as a surprise after it cleaned up the prizes from other awards bodies, but it is the most dominant position that Netflix has been in recently, and its best chance at a Best Picture win since 2018.

Unfortunately 2018, was also the year of regret. Roma Despite receiving 10 nominations, only three of them were able to win. The Irishman, which also got 10 nominations but didn’t get a single win. It seems all the signs point towards a Netflix win, despite them receiving guild awards.

Spider-Mans are not Spider-Mans.

Just because we respect Kevin Feige’s audacious claims that Spider-Man has no way home should be nominated for Best Picture (on the basis that it made a lot of money) doesn’t mean we have to agree with him … and we don’t. But while Marvel fans might be disappointed that Spider-Man didn’t manage more than a visual effects nod, everyone should be thrilled that Andrew Garfield earned a second Best Actor nomination for his excellent performance in Netflix’s musical Boom!.

Garfield has been on a non-stop press tour for his staggering three movies this year — all of which earned Oscar nominations. He’s also managed to make his superhero junkets part of his Oscar campaign thanks to his year of playfully lying about his Spider-Man status. So while his nomination isn’t for his performance in You can’t go home!, it’s sort of spiritually a Spider-Man Oscar.