As the 2024 Oscar nominees gathered, one by one, on the stage of the Beverly Hilton ballroom on a sunny Monday afternoon, it took a while to get everyone assembled and in position for the annual class photo. Those included in the ritual found ways, of course, to pass the time. Seated up front, Christopher Nolan extended his arm one chair over to give fellow directing nominee Martin Scorsese a handshake, with Lily Gladstone politely beaming as she sat between them. Mark Ruffalo pulled Barbie songwriter Finneas O’Connell and Maestro producer Kristie Macosko Krieger in for a selfie. Ryan Gosling caught up with his former co-star Emma Stone and his Barbie D.P. Rodrigo Prieto. Diane Warren and Sterling K. Brown got chummy way up in the back corner.
By Richard Harbaugh/Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
This is the only time of year when all of the year’s Oscar nominees—at least those who can attend; Danielle Brooks, for instance, couldn’t get cleared to leave Minecraft production in New Zealand—mingle in the same room before the big show. It’s hard not to get swept up in the camaraderie. There’s joy even in Academy President Janet Yang’s annual remarks, which begin as a series of effusive congratulations before she offers some relatively firm tips about how to give a great winner’s speech—in 45 seconds or less. (This year, she even showed Javier Bardem’s full, spirited 2008 remarks after winning for No Country for Old Men, and then exclaimed, “Only 37 seconds!”) The vibe is warm, communal, dare I say relaxed—odd, since it marks the peak of phase-two campaigning.
For the lucky few, this means celebrating with a whole bunch of cast and crew. Showcasing the Academy’s major international expansion, this particular event felt thrillingly global. The Zone of Interest’s Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska told me that she’d never attended this event before, unable to when she was part of the team behind international contender Cold War, and was thrilled to experience it with her best-picture nominee. Artisans from Japan’s Godzilla v Kong, Spain’s Society of the Snow, and France’s Anatomy of a Fall were well-represented too—many of them first-timers. And speaking of Academy shifts, the branch Governors in the room were buzzing about the recent creation of a long overdue casting Oscar. “I couldn’t believe it—I couldn’t fucking believe it,” governor of the Casting branch Richard Hicks told me. “It was like getting past an iceberg, but we did it.”
David Canfield
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