Awards

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

Chadwick Boseman won a posthumous SAG Award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” His widow Taylor Simone Ledward accepted the award and gave an emotional speech on his behalf during the virtual ceremony, which aired on Sunday night on TNT. Ledward thanked the cast and

There’s a double-edged sword to being singled out as an awards frontrunner. Yes, it’s a positive sign when pundits consider you the top contender to score a top prize. But be identified as the top of the pack too early, and you’ve immediately been handed a target on your back as the one to beat.

The SAG Awards have weighed in with their winners and have set in motion on what could be the most diverse slate of major Oscar winners in the 93-year history of the Academy Awards. The celebration of the 27th annual ceremony, which is voted on by the approximate 160,000-person membership of actors, was revealed during

The Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild (MUAHS, IATSE Local 706) held its eighth annual MUAHS Awards Saturday night in a virtual ceremony. Oscar frontrunner in the make-up and hair category “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” took home the feature-length motion picture awards for best period and/or character make-up and best period hairstyling and/or character hairstyling,

Though it’s set 50 years ago, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is contemporary and important. Writer-director Aaron Sorkin tells Variety, “Even from the beginning, I didn’t want the film to be about 1968, I wanted it to be about today. None of us realized how much about today it would end up being.” Sorkin

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are always a unique one to predict, given the sheer size of the voting body. There are usually around 120,000 eligible voters every year, and they are spread out across the country. Often, the safe bet is to go with popular choices or names, given the broad SAG-AFTRA membership. This

Searchlight Pictures’ “Nomadland” has shown it has the ability to pass one of the thorniest tests in the Oscar season canon: the preferential ballot. That’s the method used for selecting a winner at the Producers Guild Awards, which is also used by the Academy Awards for choosing its top prize. On March 24, the film

“Promising Young Woman” producers Margot Robbie and Josey McNamara believe that writer and director Emerald Fennell “can do it all.” “The great thing about Emerald as a filmmaker [is] from that very first moment she pitched us when she delivered the script, she knew the movie in her head instantly,” McNamara tells Variety’s Awards Circuit

SAG Awards executive producer Kathy Connell likes to refer to the annual ceremony as “the actors’ party in the actors’ house.” But in 2021, she means it literally: “This year, it’s really in their house!” That’s because the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Screen Actors Guild Awards (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT April 4 on

Lady Gaga is insurmountable in the entertainment business. The multi-platinum and global award-winning actress, singer, songwriter and superstar is celebrating her birthday today. With it, we are ranking the best performances from female musicians turned actresses in the last 35 years (post-1986), our Mother Monster’s age. The ability to artistically explore both music and acting

Listen, it’s time for all the awards gurus, publicists and industry people to take a breath. For a little over a year, the four walls surrounding us, the multiple Zoom boxes in front of us and the spewing of hatred on our television screens have divided us. The past 15 months of awards season speculations

Netflix’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” fulfills an idea that was nearly 40 years in the making: a film version of August Wilson’s play. In October 1984, Variety’s Richard Hummler reviewed its Broadway debut, praising Wilson as “a new writer of talent and power.” He added “The play will likely have a healthy production life elsewhere

George Clooney is the definition of timeless, which is why it’s hard to believe the Hollywood superstar will be turning 60 in May. But before that, on March 28, Clooney will receive the AARP Movies for Grownups Career Achievement Award at a virtual ceremony to be broadcast on PBS. Clooney is an ideal fit for

Nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards are a reminder that Oscar is like a Rorschach test: It means different things to different people. And in the 21st century, there is a growing gap between awards and the public. For decades, Oscar’s best picture winner was often the year’s top box office hit, including “Gone With

The Producers Guild of America Awards awarded Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” with their top prize, one of the key indicators for the Academy Awards, particularly the best picture category. Edging out its closest competitors including Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” and Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” this might just

Oscar producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh have announced 14 key members of the production team for the 93rd Academy Awards. Rob Paine (“A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote”) will serve as supervising producer, while co-producer Raj Kapoor (“Grammy Awards”) joins the Oscars for the fifth consecutive year, overseeing

When Oscar nominations were announced March 15, mainstream-media headlines focused on the usual topics: best picture, the four acting categories and Hollywood’s current obsession, inclusion. These are all worth talking about, but the MSM virtually ignores one key element every year: The artisans. Those individuals are key to a movie’s success, as everyone in the

Captain James T. Kirk, better known around these parts as William Shatner, turns 90 years old on March 22. The actor, director, producer and writer has had a seven decade careers, with a community of devoted fans that revere not just his place as a figure in the universe but the entire canon of “Star

The Academy Awards are over a month away, and the show’s details have been a drip-drip as the season presents various challenges for award shows and ratings. In a letter to this year’s Oscar nominees, the show’s producers, Emmy nominee Jesse Collins (“Zoboomafoo”), Oscar nominee Stacey Sher (“Django Unchained” and “Erin Brockovich”) and Oscar winner

The Oscar nominations announced on March 15 didn’t offer too many surprises, but the race for best picture in this unconventional year is still wide open. Here’s how one of these five nominees could win the top trophy on April 25. “Mank” (Netflix) If you’re the most nominated film of the lot — ”Mank” leads

The 93rd Academy Award nominations were historic in many ways, including Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield both being nominated for supporting actor for their performances as Fred Hampton and William O’Neal, respectively, in “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The noms marked not only the first time that two Black men have been nominated from the

When Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas announced the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards, the most shocking inclusion was Lakeith Stanfield in best supporting actor for his performance in Warner Bros’ “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Not surprising from the standpoint of quality, as he delivers a career-best turn as William O’Neal — an

After a completely crazy year, where the coronavirus forced most movie theaters to shut down — and the Oscars voting window was extended by two months —  it was mostly business as usual at the 93rd annual Academy Awards nominations. “Mank,” a black-and-white drama from Netflix about the making of “Citizen Kane,” led the pack

Nine actors of color earned Academy Award nominations on Monday, setting an Oscar record for diversity in those categories. The achievement comes after years of aggressive efforts by the Academy to diversify its membership in the wake of all-white acting nominees for the 2015 and 2016 ceremonies. That ignominious event was almost repeated last year