Meryl Streep Oscar nominations record
The 2014 Oscar nominations were announced earlier today at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Thor: The Dark World and Snow White and the Huntsman actor Chris Hemsworth – whose Rush was completely shut out – made the announcements, including that of Best Actress contender Meryl Streep, in the running for her performance in John Wells’ August: Osage County. Streep’s competitors are her Doubt and Julie & Julia costar Amy Adams for David O. Russell’s American Hustle, Sandra Bullock for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, Judi Dench for Stephen Frears’ Philomena, and likely winner Cate Blanchett for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. (Emma Thompson’s absence from the Best Actress roster – for her performance in John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks – was a surprise.)
Now, this year marks Meryl Streep’s 18th Academy Award nomination – her 15th as Best Actress. And that means Streep has broken the record for Academy Award nominations in the acting categories. The previous record holder was … Meryl Streep, with 17 nods (1978–2011).
In fact, in the Academy Awards’ acting categories Streep is not only the record-holding nominee, but she’s also the record-holding loser – having failed to take home the golden statuette 14 times to date. Meryl Streep’s three Oscar wins were as Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and as Best Actress for Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).
Meryl Streep Oscar nominations
Here are all 18 Meryl Streep Oscar nominations, in chronological order, including directors and costars, in addition to Streep’s competitors. Note: All nominations are in the Best Actress category; asterisks indicate nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category.
- The Deer Hunter (1978)*
Winner: Maggie Smith – California Suite - Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)*
Meryl Streep won - The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
Winner: Katharine Hepburn – On Golden Pond - Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Meryl Streep won - Silkwood (1983)
Winner: Shirley MacLaine – Terms of Endearment - Out of Africa (1985)
Winner: Geraldine Page – The Trip to Bountiful - Ironweed (1987).
Winner: Cher – Moonstruck - A Cry in the Dark (1988)
Winner: Jodie Foster – The Accused - Postcards from the Edge (1990)
Winner: Kathy Bates – Misery - The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Winner: Susan Sarandon – Dead Man Walking - One True Thing (1998)
Winner: Gwyneth Paltrow – Shakespeare in Love - Music of the Heart (1999)
Winner: Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry - Adaptation (2002)*
Winner: Catherine Zeta-Jones – Chicago - The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Winner: Helen Mirren – The Queen - Doubt (2008)
Winner: Kate Winslet – The Reader - Julie & Julia (2009)
Winner: Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side - The Iron Lady (2011)
Meryl Streep won - August: Osage County (2013)
Update: Winner: Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Meryl Streep August: Osage County image: The Weinstein Company.
Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks ‘snubbed’
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses the preferential voting system to select the nominees in the various Academy Award categories and – pre-1944, post-2009 – the Best Picture Oscar winners. When it comes to the nominations, that means an ardent minority has a good chance of selecting a nominee, whereas a widely popular – but not ardently popular – choice may be left out of the Oscar shortlist.
Oscar 2014 non-nominees Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson likely had their names listed on numerous (perhaps even on a wide majority) of ballots; Hanks for Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips, Thompson for John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks. But if in most instances they weren’t listed at or very near the top, they’d have little chance of earning a nomination, especially if there was an – even if a relatively small – ardent number of voters placing, for instance, SAG Award non-nominee but eventual Best Actress Oscar nominee Amy Adams on the Oscar ballot’s no. 1 and no. 2 slots.
Saving Mr. Banks nearly shut out
Not helping Emma Thompson was the fact that, unlike Oscar 2014 Best Picture nominee Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks clearly lacked many ardent fans in the Academy. Touted as a likely Best Picture contender, the “inspirational” drama about how Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) convinced P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to sell Disney the rights to Mary Poppins ended up with only one Oscar 2014 nomination: for Thomas Newman’s original score.
Now, despite rumors to the contrary, Meryl Streep’s widely disseminated assertions that Walt Disney was both anti-Jewish and anti-female had negligible – if any – impact on the results. After all, Streep’s anti-Disney remarks were voiced while she was presenting the Best Actress Award to Emma Thompson at the National Board of Review Awards ceremony on the evening of January 7, 2014, while the Oscar’s voting deadline was at 5 p.m. PT the following day.
For the record, the 2014 Oscar nominees for Best Actor are Christian Bale for David O. Russell’s American Hustle, Bruce Dern for Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, Leonardo DiCaprio for Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Chiwetel Ejiofor for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, and Matthew McConaughey for Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club.
The Best Actress nominees are Amy Adams for American Hustle, Cate Blanchett for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Sandra Bullock for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, Judi Dench for Stephen Frears’ Philomena, and Meryl Streep for John Wells’ August: Osage County.
Emma Thompson Oscar nominations & upcoming movies
Emma Thompson has a total of five Oscar nominations to her credit, including two wins: Best Actress for James Ivory’s Howards End (1992), Best Actress for Ivory’s The Remains of the Day (1993), Best Supporting Actress for Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father (1993), Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson won for both Howards End and for her adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel.
Emma Thompson will next be seen in Richard Laxton’s Effie Gray, featuring Dakota Fanning, Claudia Cardinale, Robbie Coltrane, and Julie Walters.
As per online sources, upcoming Emma Thompson movie projects include Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children, with Jennifer Garner, Adam Sandler, and Judy Greer; Nicholas Racz’s The Secret Evidence; the Katy Brand-written Settle Down; James McTeigue’s thriller Survivor, with Milla Jovovich, Dylan McDermott, Pierce Brosnan, and Angela Bassett; and a remake of My Fair Lady (George Cukor’s Oscar-winning 1964 version starred Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn).
Emma Thompson Saving Mr. Banks image: The Walt Disney Studios.
Oscar nominations: Surprising Omissions
The Oscar 2014 nominations were announced early on Thursday morning, Jan. 16, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Was Amy Adams shortlisted for American Hustle? Did Meryl Streep break another Oscar record? Did Robert Redford nearly break the record for longest gap between nominations in the acting categories?
Was Jennifer Lawrence snubbed? Did Scarlett Johansson make Oscar history for her voice performance as Joaquin Phoenix’s love interest in Her? Was Peter Jackson-Ian McKellen’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug shortlisted in the technical categories?
Well, you’ll find the answers to all these questions here (and that includes the list of Oscar 2014 winners). Be prepared: as usual, there were quite a few surprises.
Failed possibilities
In addition to several of those mentioned at the beginning of this article, here are those left out of the 2014 Oscar nominations: Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks (as Walt Disney) for John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks; Will Forte for Nebraska; George Clooney for Gravity; Alex Ebert for J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost; Hans Zimmer for 12 Years a Slave; and Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux for Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color.
Also: Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey for Lee Daniels’ The Butler; Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips; Daniel Brühl, and film editors Daniel P. Hanley and Mike Hill for Ron Howard’s Rush; and the sound mixing and editing teams of Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger.
Last batch: Oscar Isaac for Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis; and the special effects teams of Marc Forster’s World War Z, Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.
Note: Previously mentioned as an Oscar 2014 possibility, Inside Llewyn Davis’ “Please Mr. Kennedy” was ineligible for the Best Original Song Oscar, and thus so were its songwriters: Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen.
Amy Adams American Hustle image: Columbia Pictures | Sony Pictures.