Awards

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” “Minari,” “One Night in Miami,” “Soul” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” were among the feature films honored by the Casting Society of America at the 2021 Artios Awards. The 36th annual Artios Awards, held by the Casting Society of America in its first-ever worldwide virtual ceremony, honored excellence in casting

As accomplished as Academy Award winner Viola Davis is in the industry, she still feels the unfair comparisons and judgments for the roles she chooses. “It’s so hard to get films made that don’t fit a certain box of how they see us,” Davis tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “Inclusivity cannot be a hashtag. You’ve

“Minari” is filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical tale of a Korean American family starting a new life in 1980s Arkansas. The characters — Jacob played by Steven Yeun, Monica played by Yeri Han and Soonja played by Yuh-Jung Youn — live in a small mobile home on an isolated patch of land, in the hope

The longest awards season in modern history is finally coming to a close with the opening of Oscar voting for the Academy’s roughly 10,000 members. The feeling among industry professionals and awards strategists is that many in the Academy at large decided to bow out of the first round of nomination voting. With a smaller

For “Love and Monsters,” the film’s VFX team, led by Matt Sloan, had to devise 13 different monsters, each with a unique look. “Each had its own design rules and personality. From gross little leech-like slug worms to the misunderstood monstrous crab in the finale,” Sloan says. Familiarity was the key to the art department’s

When celebrity events were halted because of the coronavirus pandemic last March, Hollywood’s clothing stylists, hairstylists and makeup artists were put out of work. The return of awards shows and virtual events has fostered a fashion resurgence. In March 2020, stylist Ilaria Urbinati — whose client roster of Hollywood men includes Rami Malek, Dwayne (“the

As diligently as actors and crew work on set, it’s commonplace to re-record some lines down the road. For the teams behind “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” the process of painstakingly matching audio and visual was further complicated by working remotely during COVID. Eliza Pollack

Effects supervisor Bill Watral enthuses about his team’s groundbreaking work on Disney/Pixar’s Oscar-nominated “Soul,” but is quick to clarify, “Every single department here had challenges of taking existing technology and applying it to new artistic uses. A lot of things that we did are different from what Pixar does usually.” In the film’s Astral Plane,

Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt is no stranger when it comes to being at the forefront of digital moviemaking technology. David Fincher’s “Mank,” a biographical drama about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) is without exception. Visually, viewers are transported to Old Hollywood, where an alluring black-and-white visual palette blankets the screen, a look that

This year, there were 366 films in Oscar contention, with 50-plus nominated — including three centering on disabled people. While that isn’t much, it’s three more than most years and, sadly, it qualifies disability awareness as an innovation. The teams behind Amazon’s “Sound of Metal,” Netflix’s documentary “Crip Camp” and live-action short “Feeling Through” all

“Sound of Metal” director Darius Marder says he and his Oscar-nominated sound team — Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortes Navarrete — wanted heightened naturalism to depict varying stages of hearing and deafness of lead character Ruben (Riz Ahmed). “This sound mix is as complicated as in an action film,” Marder says. “This

Innovation can take many forms and sometimes it comes not from technology but technique. Nowhere was that more evident than during production and screenings of the Oscar-nominated short “Feeling Through.” Writer-director Doug Roland fictionalized his real-life encounter with a member of the deafblind community for the project. Newcomer and deafblind actor Robert Tarango played Artie.

Glenn Close is one of the most heralded actors in history, with a record eight Academy Award nominations — including this year, as best actress for “Hillbilly Elegy.” But to get there, even she has endured a series of bad auditions. In particular, she remembers a “miserable” experience in the late 1970s vying for a

When Glenn Close took on the role of Mamaw, the tough but tender grandmother to J.D. Vance in “Hillbilly Elegy,” one of her first calls was to an acclaimed makeup and prosthetics designer. “Team Mamaw started with Matthew Mungle, who had worked with me on ‘Albert Nobbs,’” says Close. “I did not want to see

Hollywood has always been drawn to true stories and there will never be a shortage of actors needed to re-create famous lives. But when portraying a real person who is dead or is even still alive, actors have their work cut out for them. On the one hand, they usually have lots of material to

The Banff World Media Festival has revealed the full list of nominees for its 2021 Rockie Awards International Program Competition. In the English comedy category, contenders include FX’s “Better Things,” HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” Hulu’s “The Great,” FX’s “What We Do In The Shadows,” Hulu’s “Woke” and Sky One’s “Brassic.” English-lingo drama nominees include

The Oscars could have some interesting surprises pop up at the ceremony on April 25, even in the best picture race. Given the unprecedented nature of the season and the assumption that many AMPAS voters sat out the nomination phase of voting, a couple of upsets may await. One of which could be “The Trial

This past weekend, singer, songwriter and actor Leslie Odom Jr. performed “Speak Now” at the BAFTA Awards as part of its opening night ceremony. The evening was hosted by radio and TV presenter Clara Amfo in a virtual ceremony. Speaking at the Variety Artisans Awards last week, the double Oscar nominee said he and fellow

The Oscars have announced an “ensemble cast” to present at the 93rd ceremony along with the first television promo. The first round of presenters includes a list of 15 former Academy Award winners and nominees, save for one: Angela Bassett (nominee for 1993’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It”), Halle Berry (actress winner for

Dazzling duds dominate the Oscar race for costume design this year. Ann Roth landed her fifth nomination and potential second win for “Ma Rainey’s BlackBottom”; the costume designing legend only had a few scarce pictures of the real-life Rainey to use as research but she managed to bring the Godmother of Blues to life.As Rainey,

The beauty of “Nomadland” rests in the hands of its direction by Chloe Zhao and its gorgeous camera work by Joshua James Richards. Some of the best work in 2021 has been delivered by young, consummate professionals, who are speaking volumes to the future of cinema and where it’s heading. From vibrant colors to emotional

Four of the five contenders in the editing race this year are newcomers, with only Alan Baumgarten (“The Trial of Chicago 7”), who snared an Oscar nom for 2013’s “American Hustle,” being recognized previously by the Academy. “The Father” might have landed six nominations including best picture, but to land a win here it would

The lead actress Oscar race is competitive, so there’s no guarantee that Andra Day will win for her socko performance in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” But Day has the kind of backstory that Oscar voters love: She (and the movie) appeared with little advance fanfare, and she makes a huge impact in only

The 2021 BAFTA nominations turned more than a few heads when they were announced in early March. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has approximately 9,000 voting members, nearly identical to AMPAS at 10,000. With “Nomadland” leading the field with seven noms and having the prestige of wins from the Golden Globes and

Anyone who says they “know” who will win the Oscar for best actress is not living in reality. It’s a rarity to use a term such as, “any of the five can win it” without making it sound cliché in awards prognostication lingo. But that’s where we are as we head into the final stretch.

Rosie Perez hasn’t been invited back to the Oscars since she attended the ceremony as a nominee in 1994 for “Fearless,” where she played a plane crash survivor crippled by grief. “Not even to sit in the audience, not to present, nothing—and I’m a member,” Perez says. “I love the Academy Awards. I cheer on

Awards season can often feel like a months-long echo chamber in which the same handful of films and names are discussed to death. So when BAFTA threw in a number of left-field contenders who had hitherto been largely absent from the conversation, it was both a refreshing change of pace for jaded awards pundits —

It’s been 20 years since the BAFTA film awards shifted their place in the awards calendar, preceding the Academy Awards rather than following them a few months later. It’s a change that has significantly altered how the British ceremony is perceived within the industry. What was once viewed as an isolated event, marked by particular,

Pixar’s “Soul,” George Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky” and “The Mandalorian” led the winners at the 19th annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards. Comedian Patton Oswalt served as host for the 10th time for the virtual ceremony which celebrated the art of visual effects across 25 categories. “Soul” was named top animated film, winning five awards.

Double Oscar nominee Leslie Odom Jr. was among the craftsmen and craftswomen at Variety‘s Artisans Awards offering advice on how to get into the field they work in. Odom Jr. said, “Starting with the education is key, and starting in the theater is key for me.” The “One Night in Miami” actor, songwriter and theater performer