Latest in Oscars

The movies are poised for a mood swing. Signs of it were all over the Golden Globes on Sunday. The audience went missing, down a startling 60% in the early numbers. Mired in self-apology, the ceremony chewed its own tail: Something has to be different next year. As for the film awards, they scattered in all…

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday revealed the 366 feature films that are eligible for consideration at the 93rd Oscars, which are set to air April 25 live on ABC. The total number of films is up from last year’s 344 films in contention. This year’s list was compiled based on tweaked…

As part of Deadline x Rolling Stone, a special issue of our AwardsLine print magazine dedicated to music in cinema, Noel Murray runs through the 20 Best Oscar music moments. For most of the history of the Academy Awards, the musical numbers have been at once glitzy and sappy, featuring fresh-scrubbed young dancers in…

A word to wise film producers: Start tracking the racial, gender and disability status of your employees now. The film Academy's Aperture 2025 inclusion program is closer than you think. Because once again, an important point is tucked in the fine print. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced…

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit. ‘Tis the season to offer your Oscar contenders for free for the whole world to see. In a follow-up to last week’s column where I questioned how Searchlight’s so-called “world premiere,” as listed on the invite for the February 18 event for Nomadland…

I was mulling a New York Post report that half the employees at The New York Times are afraid to say what they're thinking when it hit me.  It’s time for Free Speech Insurance. This is nothing like libel insurance, which protects a publisher, and maybe a writer, from defamation claims. Under a Free Speech policy from…

Lynn Stalmaster, who was the first casting director to receive an Academy Award, died today at home in Los Angeles. He was 93 and his death was confirmed by Laura Adler of the Casting Society of America. Stalmaster had a legendary vision for casting. He is credited with moving Dustin Hoffman into The Graduate…

EXCLUSIVE: The Oscar Animated Feature race just got reduced by one. Paramount and Nickelodeon’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run has withdrawn from the competition, so now instead of 27 entries — as the Academy announced on January 28 — there are 26 remaining, providing all of them meet eligibility requirements…

They fill the mailbox daily – the tightly packaged screeners that arrive like welcome anachronisms, some bearing familiar titles (Mank, Soul) but most as strangers (Wolfwalkers, Athlete A). Their sheer abundance reminds us of the creative energy out there; the “out there,” however, seems lost in the mist. "We need…

It is truly unfortunate that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has disqualified Branford Marsalis’ riveting original score for the Netflix feature adaptation of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.  AMPAS’ current rule is that a movie’s music needs to be comprised of 60% of original score…

The 93rd Oscars already will be noticeably different because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic — just look at its April 25 ceremony date, the latest-ever for the annual event. As a result, this year’s eligibility rules and timelines have been tweaked and retweaked as the movie awards season has been forced to…

This year’s Oscar Original Song shortlist has recognized a number of tunes from Black narrative or documentary films, while at the same time kept up an Academy tradition of begin able to embrace a silly song. On Tuesday that specifically meant “Wuhan Flu" from Amazon’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and “Husavik” from…