Sci-fi extravaganza “Everything Everywhere All At Once” dominated the 95th annual Academy Award nominations Tuesday morning with 11 nominations, the most of any film.
The absurdist movie was written and directed by the “Daniels” duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who also earned a nod for best director. The field-leading “Everything Everywhere” was followed by nine nominations each for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy centered on a pair of best friends who suddenly find themselves in a bitter feud, and Germany’s Oscar submission “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a World War I drama based on the 1929 semi-autobiographical bestselling book.
All three movies were in the best picture category alongside “Elvis,” Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the King; “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg’s loosely autobiographical coming of age story; “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett as a controversial composer-conductor; “Women Talking,” about a group of Mennonite women who decide how to proceed after men in their colony are jailed for sexual assault; and “Triangle of Sadness,” a dark comedy that skewers the uber-wealthy on a luxury yacht cruise.
Rounding out the category were the two highest-grossing films of 2022 that also happened to be highly-anticipated sequels: “Avatar: The Way of Water,” James Cameron’s visually dazzling epic that followed the first “Avatar” smash from 2009; and “Top Gun: Maverick,” with Tom Cruise (snubbed among the best actor nominees) reprising his role from the 1986 film as the slick Navy pilot who loves breaking the rules