23 Oscar Firsts That Could Happen At The 2022 Ceremony
The Oscars are upon us! With the ceremony just around the corner on March 27, you, me, and the Academy are frantically playing catch up on this year's nominees. Tennis parents, Shakespearean murderers, Irish pops and grans, gay cowboys, and The Ricardos are all in the mix. And while this year will potentially be a return to form after last year's scaled-back ceremony, there could still be plenty of firsts. For starters, there are 10 Best Picture contenders for the first time in a while, and eight categories being punted to the commercial breaks. I took a look at this year's nominees and pulled out 23 Oscar firsts, records, or groundbreaking accomplishments that could or will happen at the 2022 ceremony. So tune in on Sunday March 27 at 8 p.m. EST to watch history unfold before your eyes.
1.Kristen Stewart and Ariana DeBose could become the first openly queer women to win an acting Oscar.
While a number of queer women have won acting Oscars, the previous winners were not publicly out while accepting their awards. If Stewart wins Best Actress for Spencer and/or DeBose wins Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story, they would be making LGBTQ+ history.
2.Troy Kotsur could become the first deaf male actor to win an Oscar.
He is nominated for Best Supporting actor for CODA, in which his wife is played by Marlee Matlin, the first deaf female actor to win an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God back in 1987.
3.CODA could also become the first film with a predominantly deaf cast to win Best Picture.
It's already the first to be nominated. Matlin pushed hard for a predominantly deaf cast which included herself, Troy Kotsur, and Daniel Durant who plays their son. While Power of the Dog seems to be the frontrunner, the SAG ensemble prize, Kotsur's string of wins, and a growing love for the film has pushed it into the number two position.
4.If CODA wins Best Picture, it would be only the sixth film to take home the top prize without a Best Director nomination.
Both Wings (1927) and Grand Hotel (1932) won the top prize without a director nom when the awards were in their infancy. More recently, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Argo (2012), and Green Book (2018) won without Best Director nominations. These were all more populist crowdpleasers so CODA would fit the trend. If Don't Look Up, Dune, King Richard, or Nightmare Alley won Best Picture, they would also fit the criteria, although they are more long shots.
5.Denzel Washington could be the first Black actor to take home a third Oscar.
He is nominated this year for the lead in The Tragedy of Macbeth. His previous two wins are for Glory (1989) and Training Day (2001), and he is tied with Mahershala Ali for the Black actor with the most wins. This is his ninth acting nomination and tenth overall (as Fences was also nominated for Best Picture), making him the most nominated Black person in any category.
6.Will Smith would become only the fifth Black man in 94 years to win Best Actor.
He's nominated this year for King Richard. Interestingly, Smith's previous two losses were to other Black actors. He lost to Denzel Washington (Training Day) in 2001 for Ali and to Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) in 2006 for The Pursuit of Happyness. Sidney Poitier won Best Actor for Lillies of the Field in 1963 and Jamie Foxx won for Ray in 2004.
7.Lin-Manuel Miranda could complete his EGOT.
Miranda already has two Emmys, three Tonys, and three Grammys for his work in In the Heights, Hamilton, and Moana. He's nominated for Best Original Song this year for "Dos Oruguitas" in Encanto.
8.Kenneth Branagh could finally win an Oscar after seven nominations.
Branagh holds the record for most individual Oscar category nominations with seven. He was nominated for Best Director for both Belfast (2022) and Henry V (1990), which he also landed a Best Actor nomination. He was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film for Swan Song in 1994. He added a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Hamlet in 1998 and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for My Week with Marilyn in 2013. His recent nominations in Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for Belfast brought the total to seven. While he is unlikely to win in the Picture or Director races, an Original Screenplay win is definitely within striking distance.
9.Jane Campion could become the third female director to win Best Director.
If she wins for The Power of the Dog, she would follow Kathryn Bigelow who won for The Hurt Locker in 2010 and last year's winner, Chloé Zhao. She is only the first woman to be nominated twice and one of only seven women (including Lina Wertmuller, Sofia Coppola, Greta Gerwig, and Emerald Fennell) to be nominated at all.
10.If Jane Campion wins Best Director, it would also be the first time female directors have won the award back-to-back.
Of course last year Chloé Zhao won the Best Director Oscar for Nomadland, which also won Best Picture, a pairing that The Power of the Dog aims to repeat.
11.The Power of the Dog could also become the most awarded film by a female director.
The Hurt Locker won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. The Power of the Dog is nominated 12 times in 11 categories, and could feasibly take the record with wins in Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Supporting Actor, and Sound (although the last two categories would be upsets). Wins in Best Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Score, and Production Design seem like longshots.
12.Ari Wegner could become the first female cinematographer to win if The Power of the Dog takes home the Oscar.
Wegner is only the second female nominee in this category following Mudbound''s Rachel Morrison. She is the presumed favorite over Dune, Nightmare Alley, The Tragedy of Macbeth, and West Side Story.
13.One film will be the lucky first winner of the "Fan Favorite Award."
After the Best Popular Film Oscar got scrapped a few years ago, the Academy is back with this award, voted on by the general public via Twitter. Based on research into the hashtags used to vote, pundits have deemed the frontrunners as Cinderella (fueled by Camila Cabello fans), Spider-Man: No Way Home, Army of the Dead, and The Suicide Squad.
14.This will be the first Oscars of the modern era to hand out eight Oscars off the air.
Despite ever-mounting backlash, the Academy in a desperate (and sure to be unsuccessful) bid to lure in more viewers has punted eight categories from the live show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this mandate came down from ABC, who air the telecast and originally wanted to scrap more than half the categories. Here are 25 reasons why they should #PresentAll23 including the scrapped Best Documentary Short Subject, Film Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling, Original Score, Production Design, Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, and Sound.
15.Drive My Car would be the first Japanese film to win either Best Picture or Best Director.
It is also the first Japanese film ever to be nominated for Best Picture. Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the third Japanese director nominated after Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1966 for Woman in the Dunes and Akira Kurosawa in 1986 for Ran. A win in Best International Feature would only be the second for Japan in that category following Departures in 2009.
16.Drive My Car would be the first international film to win Best Adapted Screenplay.
While six international films have won Best Original Screenplay, an international film has yet to win the Adapted Screenplay Oscar even though 21 foreign-language films have been nominated in the category. While CODA and The Power of the Dog present stiff competition, the ever-increasing international base of the Academy has proven they can push a non-American film to victory.
17.Flee could be the first film to win any combination of Best Animated Feature, Best International Feature, or Best Documentary Feature if it wins two or three Oscars.
The LGBTQ+ Danish film made history by becoming the first-ever film nominated in Best Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and International Feature in the same year. It could make history a second time if it won any combination of the three awards. While Honeyland and Collective were both double nominees in Doc/International in recent years, both left empty-handed and the only international Animated winner, Spirited Away, was not nominated in the International Feature category.
18.West Side Story would be the first film to win Best Picture twice (for the two different film versions).
The 1961 version took home Best Picture along with nine other Oscars. While the 2021 version's seven nominations means it won't reach quite the same height, it is in the running for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress, Sound, Production Design, Cinematography, and Costume Design.
19.Paul Tazewell could become the first male Black costume designer to win the Best Costume Design Oscar (for West Side Story).
Tazewell is only the third Black nominee in this category after Sharen Davis and Ruth E. Carter (who became the first Black winner in 2019 for Black Panther).
20.If either combination of Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem OR Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst both win Oscars, they will be the first real life couple to win acting Oscars in the same year.
While a number of couples have been nominated the same year before, 2022 was the first year that two sets of real life couples were nominated side-by-side for acting Oscars. If the combination of Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst (both for The Power of the Dog) or Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos) and Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) both win Oscars this year, they will be the first to head home with tandem trophies.
21.If Lunana: Yak in the Classroom wins Best International Feature, it would be the first film from Bhutan to win an Oscar.
While dozens of countries have won Best International Feature Oscars (Italy alone has won 14 times), the tiny Asian country of Bhutan has yet to win an Oscar. In fact, this was only the second film they've ever submitted to the Academy, so its nomination alone is quite remarkable.
22.Billie Eilish could become the youngest person to win the "Triple Crown" of film music (Grammy, Golden Globe, and Oscar).
Eilish, who is nominated alongside her brother, Finneas O'Connell, has already won both a Grammy (Best Song Written for Visual Media) and a Golden Globe (Best Original Song) for "No Time to Die" from the latest James Bond film also titled No Time to Die. This would be the 17th time the feat was accomplished and Eilish, age 20, would nab the record from fellow Bond songstress Adele, who won her Oscar at age 25. In order to get the Oscar, however, they'll have to beat Beyoncé, Van Morrison, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the legendary Diane Warren. Speaking of...
23.And, finally, Diane Warren could win her Oscar for Best Original Song on her 13th attempt.
Please just give her the Oscar already! The poor songwriter is up for the Best Original Song Oscar for the thirteenth time (and the odds this year aren't great). She is nominated this year for "Somehow You Do" from Four Good Days and was previously nominated for songs in Mannequin, Up Close and Personal, Con Air, Armageddon, Music of the Heart, Pearl Harbor, Beyond the Lights, The Hunting Ground, Marshall, RBG, Breakthrough, and The Life Ahead.
