Vampire film Sinners breaks Oscar nominations record

Vampire horror film Sinners has broken the record for the most Oscar nominations received by a single film, after being nominated for 16 of Hollywood’s most coveted honours.

The film beat the previous record of 14 nominations, and emerged ahead of its nearest rival this year, Leonardo DiCaprio’s thriller One Battle After Another, which is up for 13 awards.

Sinners’ contenders include its star Michael B Jordan and his British co-stars Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo.

Other big names up for trophies include Timothée Chalamet, who is hoping for third time lucky after two previous nominations, and Irish actress Jessie Buckley, who is the frontrunner to win best actress for Hamnet.

However, there was no space for her co-star Paul Mescal, who starred opposite Buckley as William Shakespeare in Hamnet; while Wicked: For Good and its stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande missed out completely.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Hollywood on 15 March.

The leading films:

• Sinners – 16
• One Battle After Another – 13
• Marty Supreme – 9
• Frankenstein – 9
• Sentimental Value – 9
• Hamnet – 8

Sinners has exceeded expectations and bucked the trend that normally means horror films don’t perform well at award ceremonies.

Michael B Jordan is nominated for best actor for playing twin brothers who return home to Mississippi in the 1930s to set up a juke joint, which is set upon by blood-sucking vampires.

Other Sinners cast members to be nominated include British-Nigerian actress Wunmi Mosaku and co-star Delroy Lindo, who grew up in London, and the pair are carrying Britain’s hopes for acting awards this year.

Ryan Coogler is nominated for directing, writing and producing Sinners, with the film also shortlisted for the Oscars’ top prize, best picture.

BBC Radio 1 film critic Ali Plumb said: “The last time anything to do with a horror won best picture was The Silence of the Lambs in the early 1990s. That is a long time ago.”

He said it was good to see Sinners get “this broad a series of accolades and thumbs up from across the whole industry”.

It is “more than just a horror”, he added. “Although obviously vampires are obviously involved, there’s so much more to it.”

BBC culture editor Katie Razzall said: “It is to my mind the perfect blend of revenge thriller and sexy, decadent, musical journey through America’s race issues, good against evil, the power of music – and redemption.

“Who knew that combining vampires, KKK racists, ex-gangster twins (both played by Michael B Jordan), Mississippi delta folklore and blues history would pay off so spectacularly?”

The previous record total of 14 nominations was achieved by All About Eve in 1951, Titanic in 1998 and La La Land in 2018.

Sinners’ total this year has been boosted by the addition of a new award, for best casting, although the number of categories has fluctuated over the years.

While Sinners deals with the spectre of racism in the American South, One Battle After Another gives a take on the current messy political climate in the US.

Leonardo DiCaprio is nominated for best actor for playing a revolutionary battling an authoritarian US regime, whose past comes back to haunt him.

The film has also scooped nominations for supporting cast members Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor, as well as director Paul Thomas Anderson.

It has been the presumed favourite to win best picture throughout award season so far, and it could still pip Sinners to the top trophy in March.

The frontrunner in the nominations doesn’t always turn out to be the big winner on the night. In the past 21 years, the movie with the most nominations has gone on to win best picture just six times.

Either way, the nominations are good news for Warner Bros, which made both Sinners and One Battle After Another, as it is in the process of being sold, possibly to Netflix.

DiCaprio and Jordan will face stiff competition from Timothee Chalamet, who is hotly tipped to win his first Oscar for his role in table tennis caper Marty Supreme.

At 30, he has become the youngest man to receive three acting nominations since Marlon Brando.

This year’s best actor category is completed by Ethan Hawke, who has his fifth Oscar nomination for Blue Moon, and Brazilian actor Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent).

At 37, Emma Stone has become the youngest woman to accumulate seven Oscar nominations after being recognised for Bugonia.

She is listed for best actress alongside Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) and Norway’s Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) – but Buckley is regarded as the clear favourite in that race.

Moura and Reinsve are among a record four acting nominations for non-English language performances – the others being Sweden’s Stellan Skarsgård and Norwegian actress Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who are both in supporting categories for Sentimental Value.

Fan favourite KPop Demon Hunters has been recognised in the Oscar nominations, too. The animated Netflix hit is in pole position to win best animated feature and best song, for mega-hit Golden.

There’s no room, though, for the Wicked sequel.

This time last year, the first film received 10 nominations, and the follow-up had been widely expected to join Golden in the best song race (for The Girl in the Bubble) and be nominated for prizes like best costume and make-up. But it missed out.

Elsewhere in the music categories, Nick Cave is nominated for best song for the title song from Train Dreams, and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is nominated for best original score for One Battle After Another.

Other British nominees include fellow composer Nicholas Pike, who is up for best original song for Viva Verdi!; while Northern Irish author Maggie O’Farrell is nominated for a screenplay award for adapting her novel Hamnet alongside director Chloe Zhao.

Zhao has become only the second woman to be nominated for multiple best director Oscars, after Jane Campion. Zhao won that award for Nomadland in 2021.

Meanwhile, the best documentary feature category includes Mr Nobody Against Putin, a BBC Storyville co-production.