Numlock Awards: The 2022 Oscar Nominees

Numlock Awards is your one-stop awards season newsletter. Every week, join Walt Hickey and Michael Domanico as they break down the math behind the Oscars and the best narratives going into film’s biggest night. Today’s edition comes from Walter.

Fun stuff, some cool surprises in here — Triangle of Sadness, more like Triangle of Surprised and Delighted am I right? — we’ll hit deeper this weekend but what a crew and congrats to the nominees. Michael’s thrilled with three of his off-the-wall predictions going down, and we’re all just excited to see Good Morning America strain to explain the significance of Mahler’s Fifth.

Best Actress

Turns out the weirdest Oscar campaign ever has succeeded, and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie) gets into the mix, with Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) not getting the nod.

Best Actor

All chalk, as they say.

Best Supporting Actress

This one also broke generally as expected.

Best Supporting Actor

This one didn’t! Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway) and Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) round out the category. You can’t trust those BAFTAs.

Best Picture

The movies we’d figured would make it all made it — everything from Elvis up in that chart — and rounding out the top ten are some pretty fascinating movies, turns out the All Quiet momentum was real and the Academy was definitely down to go populist with those Avatar, Elvis and Top Gun nominations.

Best Director

The four directors we were fairly confident would make the cut are all there. The fifth one, Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness), must be delighted to get a somewhat surprising Best Picture and Best Director nomination.