Winners, Sinners and record breakers: 17 things to know about this year's Oscars

When Sinners director Ryan Coogler went to the movies as a child, he would smuggle in some snacks - and get particularly creative with the cinema's drinks machine.

"I'm not a big soda person, but when they started to let you mix and match the drinks, I got involved with that," he told Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast recently.

Decades later, Coogler's taste for combining a wide variety of flavours can be seen in his genre-defying best picture contender, which blends blues music with vampire horror against the backdrop of the 1930s Mississippi Delta.

Sinners could take several statuettes at this weekend's Oscars, but it faces tough competition from co-frontrunner One Battle After Another, in a genuinely exciting year for the awards race where several categories are too close to call.

Here are 17 fun facts to sink your vampire fangs into ahead of the Academy Awards this Sunday.

1. Zootopia 2 is this year's highest-grossing nominated film, having taken a staggering $1.86bn (£1.39bn) worldwide.

But the animated franchise has a different title in Europe - Zootropolis. That's because of Givskud Zoo in Denmark, which registered the trademark "Zootopia" in the EU in 2009, seven years before the first movie was released.

Other box office smashes nominated this year include Avatar threequel Fire & Ash, which has taken $1.48bn (£1.11bn), while the highest-grossing film in the best picture category is racing thriller F1, which made $632m (£472m).

2. Emma Stone has broken two records this year.

Aged 37, the Bugonia star is the youngest woman ever to earn seven Oscar nominations, overtaking Meryl Streep, who was 38.

Stone has also become the only actress whose first five Oscar nominations are all for films which were also nominated for best picture.

In the space of 11 years, she has been recognised for her roles in Birdman, The Favourite, Bugonia, La La Land and Poor Things - winning for the latter two.

3. Frankenstein has been two centuries in the making.

There is a 207-year gap between Mary Shelley's 1818 novel and Guillermo del Toro's 2025 film adaptation for Netflix.

That's one of the biggest gaps between source material and film adaptation in the history of the best picture category. Those ahead of it include:

4. Chase Infiniti has cinema in her blood.

The breakout star of One Battle After Another has been destined for a film career since the day she was born.

The 25-year-old was named after Nicole Kidman's character in 1995's Batman Forever, Chase Meridian, and Buzz Lightyear's catchprahse in Toy Story: "To infinity and beyond."

5. Miriam Margolyes is getting some long overdue Oscars recognition.

The British actress stars as the titular character in A Friend of Dorothy, nominated for best live action short. But Margolyes has never been nominated as an actress, much to her annoyance.

I should have been nominated but I wasn't," she told Graham Norton with characteristic candour. "I was very angry about it.

Margolyes said she should have been recognised for her role in Martin Scorsese's 1993 period drama The Age of Innocence. "I was marvellous in it," she reflected. "And the reason I wasn't nominated was because of Winona Ryder.

What happened was, [Ryder] was nominated as a supporting actress instead of a leading actress. And if she'd jolly well kept herself to herself and been nominated as a leading actress they would have nominated me in supporting. I was livid.

6. Several nominees are very loyal to their directors.

Four of this year's lead acting nominees have been recognised for films that are directed by their long-term collaborator. The four inseparable pairs are:

7. Jessie Buckley could become the first Irish winner of best actress.

Previous nominees from Ireland include Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga, while Brenda Fricker won best supporting actress in 1989. But no Irish star has yet won the leading actress category.

Having already scored best actress at the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, Bafta and Actor Awards, Buckley is likely to become the first actress to sweep the category at all five ceremonies since Renée Zellweger for Judy in 2020.

8. Brad Pitt has broken a 35-year trend.

The US actor's racing thriller F1 appears in several technical categories, but also scored a surprise best picture nomination.

The film made it into the top category despite not having any corresponding nods for directing, screenplay or acting.

The last film to do this was Beauty and the Beast in 1991.

9. KPop Demon Hunters are going for (double) gold.

The Netflix smash hit is the favourite to win two categories - best animated feature and best original song for Golden, performed by the movie's girl group Huntr/x.

Two other films have previously pulled off this double - 2010's Toy Story 3 with its song We Belong Together, and 2013's Frozen with its inescapable earworm Let It Go.

10. Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson and Amy Madigan are flying solo.

All three actresses scored the only nomination for their respective movies - If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Song Sung Blue and Weapons.

Madigan has a decent chance in the supporting actress category. But it's an uphill battle - only five actors this century have managed to pull off a win as their film's sole nominee.

They are Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Charlize Theron (Monster), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Christopher Plummer (Beginners) and Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona).

11. Timothée Chalamet is the youngest actor since Marlon Brando to score three Oscar nominations for acting.

Brando was 30, the same age as Chalamet, when he achieved his third nomination in 1954.

It's possible Chalamet could win this year for Marty Supreme, but he has lost momentum in recent weeks. (Brando notably didn't win until his fourth nomination, for On the Waterfront.)

Chalamet has already missed his chance to be the youngest-ever winner. That record is held by Adrien Brody, who won aged 29 for The Pianist in 2001.

12. Only three Norwegian actors have ever been nominated for an Oscar - and two of them are from this year.

Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas are both nominated for their performances in family drama Sentimental Value.

The only other Nordic actor recognised by the Academy is Liv Ullmann - who was nominated for both The Emigrants (1972) and Face to Face (1976).

13. One Battle After Another is Leonardo DiCaprio's 12th movie to be nominated for best picture - drawing him level with Robert de Niro.

The Godfather Part II (1974) was de Niro's first appearance in the top category, before he continued his streak with films such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Joker and The Irishman.

DiCaprio's first appearance, meanwhile, was for 1997's Titanic, continuing through The Departed, Inception and Django Unchained.

Both actors notched up another one when they appeared together in 2023's Killers of the Flower Moon.

Meanwhile, One Battle director Paul Thomas Anderson could pull off a rare Oscars trifecta by personally winning three Oscars for writing, directing and producing - a combo that has only been achieved by 10 other filmmakers.

14. Wagner Moura has joined an exclusive club.

The Secret Agent star joins the select group of best actor nominees from films entirely spoken in languages other than English.

The others are Javier Bardem, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini, Max von Sydow, Gérard Depardieu, Massimo Troisi, Antonio Banderas and Roberto Benigni (who is the only one to win, for 1997's Life is Beautiful).

15. Mind the gap! Several nominees have been on an Oscars break.

Song Sung Blue star Kate Hudson is nominated for the first time in 25 years, while One Battle After Another star Benicio del Toro's nod comes 22 years after his last.

Weapons star Amy Madigan, meanwhile, is nominated for the second time, a whopping 40 years after her first nomination, for the aptly named Twice in a Lifetime.

She's not far behind Judd Hirsch, who holds the record thanks to the 42-year gap between his nominations for Ordinary People (1981) and The Fabelmans (2023).

16. Delroy Lindo is up for best supporting actor despite not even being nominated at the Bafta, Golden Globe and Actor Awards.

This happens every now and again - the last actor to pop up at the Oscars without any major precursor recognition was Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie in 2022. But it's very rare that an actor with only an Oscar nomination goes on to win.

If Lewisham-born Lindo takes home the prize, he'll be the first actor to win an Oscar without an earlier nomination since Marcia Gay Harden for Pollock in 2001.

Lindo's co-star Michael B Jordan could also break a record if he repeats his recent Actor Award (formerly SAG) win at the Oscars.

No lead actor has ever won the Actor Award and Oscar without also winning anything at the Golden Globes, Baftas or Critics Choice Awards.

17. Hamnet is following in EastEnders' footsteps.

Despite having a mostly original score, Hamnet director Chloe Zhao chose a 20-year-old piece of music for the film's emotional final scene.

She isn't the first to invoke the emotive On The Nature of Daylight by composer Max Richter - it has been used by countless directors over the last two decades in their efforts to make audiences cry.

You might have recognised it from its use in Arrival, Shutter Island, The Last of Us, Stranger Than Fiction, The Handmaid's Tale, The Innocents... and, perhaps most importantly, an episode of EastEnders.

This year's Oscars have finally given us the Shakespeare and Albert Square crossover we've always wanted.

The Academy Awards take place on Sunday (15 March).

Source: BBC
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