Take a bow, Cincinnati.
Eight of the 10 films nominated for the Academy Award for best picture have connections to Greater Cincinnati movies — seven since George Clooney reinvigorated the local filmmaking scene with The Ides of March in 2011, and one nominee who worked on the Oscar-winning Rain Man, which put Cincinnati on Hollywood's radar in 1988.
Actors Ryan Gosling, Jeffery Wright and Paul Giamatti, who were in The Ides of March, received nominations Tuesday: Gosling for best supporting actor for Barbie; Giamatti for best lead actor in The Holdovers; and Wright for best lead actor in American Fiction.
Oppenheimer led all films with 13 nominations, followed by 11 for Poor Things and 10 for Killers of the Flower Moon with Robert DeNiro, who filmed a 1950s gangster movie here last year now called Alto Knights (previously known as The Wise Guys). Barbie had eight nods, and Maestro got seven nominations. See the full list here.
Film Cincinnati Executive Director Kristen Schlottman, who's currently attending the Sundance Film Festival, recognized many of the Oscar nominees from assisting them on a variety of film projects in the past 14 years. She sent along this list from Utah via Jackie Reau, CEO for Game Day Communications, which does public relations for the film commission.
BARBIE: Actor Gosling received one of eight Oscar nominations for Barbie, the world's No. 1 movie at the box office in 2023. Director Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, who married last fall, were nominated for best adapted screenplay — but Gerwig was snubbed in the director category. Schlottman notes that Gerwig and Baumbach filmed White Noise in Northeast Ohio in 2022.
THE HOLDOVERS: Schlottman was instrumental in helping Clooney film The Ides of March here, including Giamatti's scenes in a Second Street tavern. But she wasn't involved in the film commission — in fact there wasn't a Cincinnati film commission — when Mark Johnson helped director Barry Levinson film Rain Man here in 1988. Johnson was nominated Tuesday for producing best picture nominee The Holdovers.
Alexander Payne, who directed The Holdovers (and Sideways and Clooney's The Descendants) was here "in 2019 for a Netflix untitled feature," Schlottman says. Both executive producer Chris Stinson and stunt coordinator Amy Green were here in 2018 for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the Ted Bundy biography with Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Jim Parsons and Dylan Baker.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: In addition to best picture, the 10 nominations for Killers of the Flower Moon included a best supporting actor nod for Robert De Niro. He was in downtown Cincinnati a year ago filming a 1950s gangster movie called Alto Knights (previously known as The Wise Guys).
AMERICAN FICTION: Wright, who received his first Oscar nomination Tuesday, returned to the Queen City six years afterThe Ides of March to appear in The Public, Emilio Estevez's 2017 film shot at the Public Library Downtown with Alec Baldwin, Gabrielle Union and Jena Malone.
POOR THINGS: Director Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Ed Guiney — who were listed on the best picture nomination with actress Emma Stone — were also director and producer, respectively, on The Killing of a Sacred Deer here in 2016 with Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell and Alicia Silverstone. Stone was nominated for best lead actress while a best supporting actor nod went to Mark Ruffalo, who starred in Dark Waters here in 2018.
PAST LIVES: Christine Vachon and Pam Koffler — who along with David Hinojosa produced this best picture nominee — spent much of the past decade producing movies in Greater Cincinnati: Carol (2014), Goat (2015), Mercy (2016) and Dark Waters (2018). This is their first Oscar nomination.
OPPENHEIMER: None of the 13 nominations — including best picture, directing, supporting actors (Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt) and cinematography — directly trace to Cincinnati. But cast member Casey Affleck (Boris Pash) spent time here in 2018 filming The Old Man & the Gun with Robert Redford.
MAESTRO: Cincinnati native Steven Spielberg, who moved to New Jersey at age 2, has never shot a movie here. But he was nominated as a best picture producer for Maestro, the film about composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein. If he wins, it will be Spielberg's fourth Academy Award. Schlottman also notes that actress Maya Hawke (Jamie Bernstein) filmed Wildcats in Louisville last year with "many Cincinnati crew (members)."
The 96th Annual Academy Awards will air 7 p.m. Sunday, March 10, from Los Angeles. Jimmy Kimmel will host for a fourth time.
