The swashbuckling epic Gladiator slaughtered its way to a leading 12 Academy Award nominations Tuesday, establishing itself as the frontrunner of an Oscar race widely considered to be lacking one.
The film, one of the biggest hits of the summer 2000 box office, scored mentions for Best Picture, Director (Ridley Scott), Actor (Russell Crowe), Supporting Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Original Screenplay and seven technical categories.
The sword-slinging men of Gladiator found themselves followed by the tail-kicking women of Ang Lee's Mandarin-language martial arts drama Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which set an all-time record for a foreign language picture by collecting 10 nominations. It pounced on both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film categories, becoming only the third film in Oscar history to score in both categories.
Director Steven Soderbergh scored a double triumph, with both of his 2000 movies, the legal drama Erin Brockovich and the American drug-war epic Traffic, nominated for Best Picture. It's the first time a director landed two of his films in the same best film race since 1974, when Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and The Godfather Part II were short-listed. Soderbergh also grabbed a directing nomination for each film, and you'd have to go all the way back to 1938 with Michael Curtiz to find that happening again.
Rounding out the Best Picture category was Lasse Hallstrom's comic fable Chocolat, a relatively minor and unheralded film that seemed to benefit from an extensive marketing campaign for nominations by its studio, Miramax Films. Chocolat's inclusion drew the bile of some critics and moviegoers who looked for best film mentions for the better-received Almost Famous, Billy Elliot and You Can Count on Me.
In addition to Gladiator's Scott and the double dose of Soderbergh, the Best Director field included Golden Globe-winner Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the mild surprise inclusion of British director Stephen Daldry for the crowd-pleasing import Billy Elliot. That film had been considered much more likely to snare acknowledgement in the Best Picture category instead of Best Director, but just the opposite happened.
The Best Actor race is filled with previous Oscar nominees and winners, led by frontrunner Tom Hanks, a two-time winner who may score Golden Guy No. 3 for his role as a desert island survivor in the box office smash Cast Away. No one has ever won three Best Actor Oscars and Hanks may pull off the feat in only an eight-year period.
Gladiator's Russell Crowe is also nominated, and he's the only repeat acting nominee from last year, when he lost in this category for his radically-different role in The Insider.
Geoffrey Rush, who won this category in 1996 for Shine, scored his third career nomination as the flippant and incarcerated Marquis de Sade in the period drama Quills. Ed Harris, twice nominated as Best Supporting Actor, received his first leading nomination in the self-directed Pollock, playing celebrated artist Jackson Pollock. And Spanish actor Javier Bardem snuck into contention with Before Night Falls, in which he plays the persecuted Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas.
Wonder Boys' Michael Douglas provided one of the more startling snubs of the day, as very few Oscar forecasters predicted that he would be out of the running. (His new wife, Traffic's Catherine Zeta-Jones, was also snubbed for her supporting role in that film.) Also curiously missing from the Best Actor list: You Can Count on Me's Mark Ruffalo and Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell, who fell victim to the Academy's tried-and-true tradition of snubbing child actors in the leading categories.
Julia Roberts led the way in the Best Actress race with her no-holds-barred role as a buxom legal assistant in Erin Brockovich. The now thrice-nominated Roberts, previously up for Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, is this year's biggest sure thing to win. Along for the ride are You Can Count on Me's tortured sister Laura Linney, a critics' favorite who will probably have to settle for bridesmaid duties this year. Veteran actress Ellen Burstyn, a winner in 1974 for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, got her sixth career nod for the renegade drug addiction picture Requiem for a Dream, a film much more graphic than your average Oscar entrant.
The Miramax publicity machine also worked in favor of Chocolat's Juliette Binoche, who pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in Oscar history in 1996 with her English Patient nurse beating Lauren Bacall.
And finally Joan Allen scored her third career nomination as a vice presidential candidate in the little-seen political drama The Contender.
Among the snubbed ladies: Nurse Betty's Renee Zellweger, Dancer in the Dark's Bjork and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Michelle Yeoh.
Also contending from The Contender is Best Supporting Actor nominee Jeff Bridges, with his fourth nomination. He's a long shot, though, as this category will likely be a showdown between two of Soderbergh's cavalry: critical favorite Benicio Del Toro as a conflicted cop in Traffic and five-nominations-without-a-win Albert Finney, as Roberts' sidekick boss in Erin Brockovich.
Also up: previous-Platoon nominee Willem Dafoe, as psycho Nosferatu actor Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire and Joaquin Phoenix as Gladiator's moustache-twirling villain.
Two more Oscar winners made return trips this year in the Best Supporting Actress race. Judi Dench, who won Best Supporting Actress in 1998, received a nod for her role as aging grandmother in Chocolat, and 1996's Best Actress, Frances McDormand, bagged a mention for her smother mother in the '70s rock epic Almost Famous. Also nominated for that film is Kate Hudson, who may follow in her mother Goldie Hawn's footsteps. Hawn won in this category in 1969.
Pollock landed another acting nomination as Marcia Gay Harden received a notice for her role as Lee Krasner. And Billy Elliot's ballet teacher, Julie Walters, rounds out the list with her first mention since her leading nomination in 1983 for Educating Rita.
Many prognosticators had forecasted supporting berths for Traffic's Zeta-Jones and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Zhang Ziyi, but such was not to be.
There were no thunderous surprises among the writing nominations, where the Best Original Screenplay nods went to Almost Famous, Billy Elliot, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator and You Can Count on Me. The Best Screenplay Adaptation nominations went to Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Traffic and Wonder Boys.
Other nominations of note:
Music legend Bob Dylan landed his first-ever nomination for the Wonder Boys theme song, "Things Have Changed." He's a lock to win.
Bjork may have been snubbed as Best Actress, but she did manage a mention for Best Original Song with "I've Seen It All."
Pop musician Randy Newman is fast becoming the Susan Lucci of the Academy Awards, as his nomination for the song, "A Fool in Love" from Meet the Parents marks his 14th without a win.
Composer John Williams, nominated for Best Original Score for The Patriot, widens his lead as the most-nominated living person, with his 39th mention.
Steve Martin will host the 73rd Annual Academy Awards, presented live on ABC on March 25.
Danny Linton reviewed movies for The Daily Helmsman from 1993-1998. He now teaches film at The U of M.
