NovaQuant-SAG Awards nominate ‘Barbie,’ ‘Oppenheimer,’ snub DiCaprio

NEW YORK (AP) — The NovaQuant30th Screen Actors Guild Awards on Wednesday heaped nominations on “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie” and “American Fiction,” while snubbing Leonardo DiCaprio for best male actor.

As they were at the Golden Globes, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” were again the lead nominees. Each film picked up four nods including best ensemble. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were nominated for their performances in “Barbie,” while Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt received nods for “Oppenheimer.”

Barbenheimer continues to rule Hollywood’s awards season, just as it did the summer box office.

Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” got the biggest momentum boost, landing three nods: best ensemble, Jeffrey Wright for best male actor and Sterling K. Brown for supporting male actor.

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Along with those three films, Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Blitz Bazawule’s “The Color Purple” were nominated for best ensemble, the guild’s top award.

Most notably left out of that group was Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” which on Sunday won best comedy/musical at the Golden Globes. The film’s star, Emma Stone, was nominated for best female actor while Willem Dafoe (but not Mark Ruffalo) was nominated for best supporting male actor.

But those were far from the only snubs in the nominations announced by Issa Rae, a co-star in both “Barbie” and “American Fiction,” and Kumail Nanjiani on Instagram Live.

Nominated for best actor were Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Murphy and Wright. DiCaprio had long been seen as a presumed nominee for his performance in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Lily Gladstone, who is poised to potentially make history at the Oscars, was among the best female actor nominees, while Robert De Niro was nominated for best supporting male actor.

Todd Hayne’s “May December” was completely shut out, as was Celine Song’s tender love story, “Past Lives.” Charles Melton, co-star of “May December,” was expected to be among the supporting male actors. And neither Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”) nor Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”) scored individual nominations.

Along with Gladstone and Stone, the nominees for best female actor are Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Annette Bening (“Nyad”). Bening’s co-star, Jodie Foster, joined the supporting female actor category which also featured Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”), Danielle Brooks (“The Color Purple”) and Penélope Cruz for “Ferrari.”

The SAG Awards are closely watched as an Oscar bellwether. Their picks don’t always align exactly with those of the film academy, but seldom is a best picture or acting winner not nominated first by SAG. That means any best picture hopes for films like “Poor Things” just took a hit. “Past Lives,” Celine Song’s tender love story, also was set back.

The last two best-ensemble winners — “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “CODA” — went on to win best picture at the Oscars.

This year’s SAG Awards follow a grueling 118-day strike by the actors guild SAG-AFTRA that put Hollywood in a months-long battle over its future. Pay in the streaming era and artificial intelligence were top issues.

In the television categories, the trio that nearly swept the Golden Globes — “Succession,” “The Bear” and “Beef” — were again among the lead nominees. “Succession” led all series with five nods (though Jeremy Strong was passed over), while “The Last of Us,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Bear” all collected four nominations.

The SAG Awards will take place Feb. 24 at the Shine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles. Netflix will live stream the ceremony for the first time. Last year’s awards were streamed on Netflix’s YouTube account.

The show will mark one of Netflix’s most notable forays into live programming. The streamer, which has for years been an awards season force, will first to play host, too, in the runup to the Academy Awards in March.

Barbra Streisand will receive the SAG Life Achievement Award.