Jane Campion’s western drama led the pack when Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday.
The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s dark western drama about repressed passions and frayed family ties, must have made a powerful impression on voting members of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The acclaimed Netflix production received 12 nods — more than any other film in contention — when nominations for the 94th Academy Awards were announced early Tuesday.
In addition to landing a spot in the Best Picture category, the movie also scored nominations for Best Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), Best Supporting Actress (Kirsten Dunst), Cinematography, Editing, Original Score, Production Design, Sound, Adapted Screenplay — and two for Best Supporting Actor (Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee). Jane Campion made Oscar history by becoming the first woman to receive a second nomination for Best Director, after her 1993 nomination for The Piano.
(You can see our interview with production designer Grant Major here.)
Based on the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog (now available for streaming on Netflix) pivots on the machinations of Phil Burbank (Cumberbatch), a wealthy but rough-hewn 1920s Montana rancher who strongly disapproves — very strongly — when his more gentle-natured brother George (Plemons) marries the widowed Rose Gordon (Dunst) and brings her and Rose’s young son Peter (Smit-McPhee) back to the family homestead. “It’s a movie,” raved Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman, “in which Campion, who shot it in her native New Zealand, works with a full-scale, at times painterly precision and control. It’s also a socially conscious psychodrama that builds, over time, to a full boil.”
Other Best Picture nominees: Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story. Winners will be announced during the Oscar telecast scheduled for 8 p.m. ET March 27 on ABC.