'Sirât' Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Are the Oscar shortlists a reflection of the overall preferences of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? If so, then Academy members must really love Warners' Sinners and Universal's Wicked: For Good - two giant blockbusters, the former of which also received raves and the latter of which didn't - given that, in Tuesday afternoon's announcement of shortlists for 12 categories, they co-led the field with eight mentions, including two songs, each. Also if so, then there may be cause for concern for several films that heretofore have been regarded as top-tier contenders, including Neon's It Was Just an Accident and No Other Choice; Netflix's Jay Kelly and A House of Dynamite; Warners' Weapons; Amazon's Hedda and 20th Century's Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, each of which registered just a single mention; and Searchlight's Rental Family and The Testament of Ann Lee, neither of which landed even one. Related Stories Movies Tessa Thompson Doesn't Need You to Like Her Latest Character, Hedda, But She Does Want Her to Be Understood Movies 2026 Oscars Shortlists Revealed But it's not quite as simple as that. Backers of the first group should certainly celebrate - and backers of the second group should certainly reflect on - today's announcement. But the bottom line is that the categories for which there are shortlists - which this year included, for the first time, casting and cinematography - overwhelmingly emphasize technical achievements, as opposed to areas like acting, writing and directing, in which some of the films that did not do well today are primed to accrue multiple nominations, and in which some of the films which were heavily shortlisted will be less competitive. All that being said, I think a few things about the shortlists remain highly notable... Neon's Sirât, a dark Spanish-language drama about a father's quixotic search for his missing daughter, landed five mentions - not only for international feature, which was widely expected, but also for casting, cinematography, score (Kangding Ray's underground rave music also received Globe and Critics Choice noms) and sound. That's as many as Warners' One Battle After Another, the presumptive best picture Oscar frontrunner, and Apple/Warners' F1: The Movie. And it undeniably reflects that this little film, which tied for the jury prize at May's Cannes Film Festival, has been widely seen and appreciated, despite featuring subject matter and music that prior incarnations of the Academy probably would have resisted. Everyone has assumed that the international features with the best shot of landing best picture noms are four other Neon titles - It Was Just an Accident, Sentimental Value, No Other Choice and The Secret Agent - but could Sirât crash the party in addition to, or perhaps instead of, one of those? It would be one of the more out-there best picture nominees in history, but after today, one cannot rule out the possibility. The documentary branch, which has come under fire in recent years for its rejection of docs that are actually popular with the public, especially Netflix-distributed and/or celeb-related titles, showed some improvement in those areas but still threw in a couple of headscratchers for good measure. Credit to them, I suppose, for not punishing the excellent and unfortunately timely The Perfect Neighbor for being from Netflix (same with Apocalypse in the Tropics and Cover-Up) and/or popular (it was the streamer's most-watched film of any sort for a while). But not finding room for HBO's My Mom Jayne, Mariska Hargitay's beautiful film about her relationship with her mom, the late movie star Jayne Mansfield, when numerous other groups have embraced it, including the Producers Guild, which nominated it for its top prize? And because the filmmaker and subject are famous? I'm sorry, but that's idiotic and comparably weird, to me, as not finding room among the final 15 for Neon's Orwell: 2+2=5, directed by past nominee Raoul Peck. The international feature shortlist included a wealth of worthy titles, including the aforementioned five from Neon, as well as excellent options like Netflix's Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan), Sony Classics' The President's Cake (Iraq) and GKIDS' Kokuho (Japan). But voters surprisingly opted not to shortlist several worthy docs that had been submitted for international feature consideration, most notably PBS's 2000 Meters to Andriivka (Ukraine) and Nat Geo's The Tale of Silyan (North Macedonia). However, the shortlist's most egregious oversight, to me, was Music Box's Young Mothers (Belgium); its absence means that the brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne - who have won Cannes' Palme d'Or twice, and more overall prizes from th