Final Nominee Announcement Includes Six Categories: Director, Screenplay, International Film, Editing, Art Direction
First Asian Film in 20 Years Nominated for Best Picture
Aiming to Be the Second Film to Win Both Oscar and Cannes Best Picture Awards
The film Parasite will be the first Korean movie to take the stage at the Academy Awards (Oscars). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which oversees the Oscars, announced the final nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards on the 13th (local time). Parasite was nominated in six categories, including the highest honor, Best Picture, as well as Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best International Feature Film, Best Editing, and Best Production Design.
This is the first time a Korean film has been nominated as a final contender at the Oscars. Since director Shin Sang-ok’s The Guest in the Guest Room in 1962, Korean films have been consistently submitted but have always faced disappointment. Last year, director Lee Chang-dong’s Burning was only a preliminary nominee for Best International Feature Film (then Best Foreign Language Film) and did not make the final nomination list.
Parasite is making a significant stride not only for Korean cinema but also for Asian films. It is the first Asian film in 20 years to be nominated for Best Picture since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, China). Non-English language films nominated for Best Picture, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001), Amour (France/Austria, 2013), and Roma (Mexico, last year), have all won Best International Feature Film, but none have won Best Picture. Director Bong Joon-ho once remarked that “the Academy Awards are not an international film festival but merely a regional film festival.”
The Academy Awards ceremony is the most prestigious film event in the United States, the center of the global film industry. It is highly coveted by filmmakers worldwide. If Parasite wins an Oscar trophy, it will have achieved a monumental feat by sweeping the highest honors in Europe and North America following its Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival. Historically, only one film, Marty (1955), has won both the Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture. Parasite will compete for Best Picture against Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Director Bong Joon-ho has also joined the Best Director nominee lineup, standing shoulder to shoulder with world-renowned masters such as Martin Scorsese for The Irishman, Todd Phillips for Joker, Sam Mendes for 1917, and Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He and writer Han Jin-won were also nominated for Best Screenplay. They will compete against Ryan Johnson for Knives Out, Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story, Mendes for 1917, and Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Parasite also comfortably secured a spot on the final nominee list for Best International Feature Film. Other nominees in this category include The Painted Bird (Poland), Honeyland (North Macedonia), Les Mis?rables (France), and Pain and Glory (Spain). Parasite has won nearly every international film award in this category, making it a strong favorite to win. However, no film that has won Best International Feature Film has ever also won Best Picture at the Oscars.
Parasite was also nominated for Best Production Design and Best Editing. Production designer Lee Ha-jun will compete against Bob Shaw for The Irishman, Ra Vincent for Jojo Rabbit, Dennis Gassner for 1917, and Barbara Ling for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Editor Yang Jin-mo will compete against Michael McCusker for Ford v Ferrari, Thelma Schoonmaker for The Irishman, Tom Eagles for Jojo Rabbit, and Jeff Groth for Joker.
The Academy Awards are voted on by approximately 8,000 AMPAS members, including producers, actors, and directors. Members vote within their respective branches to select the final nominees for each category. Directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors, and so forth. Best Picture and Best International Feature Film nominees are selected by the entire membership regardless of branch. The winners are determined through a final vote, in which about 4,000 members reportedly participate.
In the nominee announcement, Joker was named in eleven categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and 1917 each received ten nominations. Parasite, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and Marriage Story followed with six nominations each.
The nominees for Best Actor are Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory), Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Adam Driver (Marriage Story), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), and Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes). The Best Actress category includes Cynthia Erivo (Harriet), Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story), Saoirse Ronan (Little Women), Charlize Theron (Bombshell), and Ren?e Zellweger (Judy). Korean-American Awkwafina, who won a Golden Globe for The Farewell, was not nominated.
Meanwhile, director Lee Seung-jun’s documentary In The Absence was nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject. The film raises questions about the absence of the state by listing on-site footage and call records from the Sewol ferry disaster. It will compete against four other films: Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone (If You're a Girl), Life Overtakes Me, and St. Louis Superman. The awards ceremony will be held on March 9 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles (formerly the Kodak Theatre).
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