NEW YORK (AP) — In nominations to its 29th annual awards, the Screen Actors Guild heaped honors on the casts of the anarchic indie hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and the Irish tragicomedy “The Banshees of Inisherin,” while throwing some curve balls into the Oscar race.
The awards contenders, voted on by the Hollywood actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA, were announced Wednesday on Instagram Live by Haley Lu Richardson (“The White Lotus”) and Ashley Park (“Emily in Paris”). The nominees for the guild’s top award, best ensemble, are: “Babylon,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Fabelmans” and “Women Talking.”
The SAG Awards are considered one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers. Seldom does a movie or performance not nominated by the screen actors end up winning at the Academy Awards. Actors make up the biggest percentage of the film academy, so their choices have the largest sway.
Missing out on a SAG ensemble nomination usually means a film’s best-picture hopes are over. Last year, all the top SAG winners — the cast of “CODA,” Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Troy Kotsur and Ariana DeBose — all repeated their wins at the Oscars.
That means the road ahead for either of the year’s top box-office hits — “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” — just got a lot harder. After striking out with the actors guild, neither is likely to win best picture. Each film picked a nod from SAG for its stunt ensemble.
Coming off their wins at the Golden Globes on Tuesday night, Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” and Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” (a co-leading five SAG nods) increasingly look like this year’s frontrunners, along with Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (also five SAG nominations).
The directors to…
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