While the candy-colored mega-hit "Barbie" was short-listed across five categories, international films and documentaries exploring conflict and culture also staked Oscar claims.
German thriller 'The Teachers' Lounge' is shortlisted for a best international feature OscarImage: Judith Kaufmann/Alamode/dpa/picture alliance
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Kicking off Oscar season for 2024, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Thursday its short lists in 10 categories — including best original song, documentary feature, international feature, original score, visual effects and sound.
The "Barbie" power ballad "I'm Just Ken" was among several chart-toppers up for best original song.
Two more were from the same film: Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night" and "What Was I Made For?" by Billie Eilish; while Lenny Kravitz got a nod for song "Road to Freedom" from "Rustin," and Jarvis Cocker for "Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)" from "Asteroid City."
Several songs from the hit 'Barbie' made the Oscar short listImage: Warner Bro./ASSOCIATED PRESS/picture alliance
Ukraine siege documentary short-listed for two categories
Meanwhile, the Ukraine war film "20 Days in Mariupol" was short-listed in both the documentary and international feature categories.
The film's director, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov, knows global attention is shifting to Israel but his film on Russian atrocities remains essential, he told DW during the film's German premiere at Berlin's Human Rights Film Festival in October.
The film, which has also won the World Cinema documentary prize following its successful Sundance premiere, is based on footage collected by Associated Press reporters in the first 20 days of Russia's siege of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in March 2022.
It features the shocking scene, which went viral around the world, of a pregnant woman being carried away on a stretcher after a Russian missile strike on a maternity hospital.
These snippets, drawn from 30 hours of footage, have a powerful impact. But for Chernov, they are, "not enough to speak about all the tragedies that happened in Mariupol."
The Ukraine war documentary '20 Days in Mariupol' has been selected in two categoriesImage: mstyslav chernov/AP/Sundance Institute
Acclaimed Auschwitz drama makes the grade
Also in contention for the best international feature Oscar is Jonathan Glazer's British entry, "The Zone of Interest," a Holocaust drama.
Winner of this year's Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, the runner-up to the Palme d'Or prize, "The Zone of Interest" takes place outside the walls of the Auschwitz extermination camp and, incredibly, features no violence.
It stars Academy Award nominee Sandra Hüller ("Toni Erdmann") in the role of Hedwig Höss, the wife of Rudolf Höss. The longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Höss, played by Christian Friedel, was hanged for war crimes in 1947.
Hüller has been making headlines this award season. The German actress has earned top awards and nominations both for her portrayal of Hedwig Höss, as well as for her lead role in "Anatomy of a Fall."
Director Jonathan Glazer ("Under the Skin") said Hüller was "very apprehensive" about portraying a Nazi on screen, something she had previously refused to do. But the British director convinced her that his film, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by British writer Martin Amis, would be different.
In the shadow of mass extermination, the entire film plays out like a family drama as the Höss family picnic by the river, play in the garden or chat with their friends.
'The Zone of Interest' sees a lead official in the Auschwitz death camp enjoying a bucolic family life outside its gatesImage: A24/Everett Collection/picture alliance
Meanwhile, the award-winning German psychological drama, "The Teachers' Lounge," made the short list with a more contemporary theme.
Described by The Hollywood Reporter as "a pulse-pounding exploration of the ways we draw lines between enemies and friends, and the courage it takes to blur them," the film portrays a teacher's vain attempt to uncover a crime.
Director Ilker Catak's provocative drama shows how individuals are ultimately worn down by entrenched power.
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From Bhutan to Japan
Tokyo-set "Perfect Days," a film by veteran German director Wim Wenders, is also short-listed for best international feature and is Japan's Oscar entry.
Legendary actor Koji Yakusho won best actor in Cannes for his lead role as an ageing, Zen-like toilet cleaner in the film that showcases Tokyo's architect-designed lavatories.
Koji Yakusho plays the monk-like lead in the Wim Wenders film, 'Perfect Days'Image: Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection/picture alliance
Other international feature films on the 15-film short list for nominations include Tran Anh Hung's "The Taste of Things" (France), Lila Aviles' "Totem" (Mexico), Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's "Fallen Leaves" and "The Monk and the Gun" from Bhutan.
"'The Monk and the Gun' is a story about the change and transition that Bhutan went through in the 2000s, when we became the last country in the world to allow television, to allow the internet and to allow democracy to come in," filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji told DW of the film.
Variety magazine has ranked "The Monk and the Gun" as a "top-tier possibility" for the award.
'The Monk and the Gun' is set in 2006 as Bhutan shifts to a democracy and citizens learn how to voteImage: The Monk and the Gun
High-profile names set for multiple Oscar nominations
Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" and Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" were prominently represented among the finalists in many categories, including score and sound.
The opulent "Oppenheimer" was a notable omission, however, among the 10 finalists in the visual effects category.
Both "Oppenheimer" and "Killers of the Flower Moon" did make the cut for makeup and hairstyling, while "Barbie" missed out.
Big names also featured in the live action category, with both Pedro Almodovar's western "Strange Way of Life," starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal; and Wes Anderson's "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," with Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Kingsley, in the running.
The final list of nominations in all categories for the 96th Oscars will be announced on January 23. Jimmy Kimmel hosts the award ceremony on March 10, broadcasting live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier
The films that made Wim Wenders cult
He's a figurehead of New German Cinema: Here are the films that made Wim Wenders renowned.
Image: imago images/Mary Evans/Rights Managed
Wim Wenders' cinematic vision
A filmmaker and photographer, artist, music lover and much more: Wim Wenders, who was born on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, released his first feature film, "Summer in the City," 50 years ago. Here's a look at some at the director's most memorable works.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Guillot
Iconic: 'Paris, Texas'
The image of Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) walking in the Texan desert on his way to nowhere became part of film history. "Paris, Texas," is a German film set in the United States in a dreamlike desert landscape. It helped pave the way for the success of director Wim Wenders. It wowed audiences around the world and won him the Golden Palm at the 1984 Cannes film festival.
Actress Nastassja Kinski played the role of her life in "Paris, Texas." Performances such as hers helped make the film a success and turn Wenders into a big name in the international film scene. The West German director continually reinvented himself and was also celebrated for his documentary films.
Image: imago images/Mary Evans/Rights Managed
Unhappy in Hollywood
A big fan of American cinema, Wenders traveled to the US in 1977 to shoot several movies, yet it wasn't the experience he had hoped for. He didn't want to integrate himself into the Hollywood system and considered himself an artist more than a commissioned director. Yet his 1982 Hollywood film "Hammett," which tells the story of crime writer Dashiell Hammett, is still one of his top works.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Liberation through 'The State of Things'
That same year, in 1982, Wenders directed another memorable film: "The State of Things." It featured legendary US director Sam Fuller (pictured) as one of the cast. In it, Wenders processed his experiences as a director and described the hardships of the film business. For Wenders, the movie was a form of liberation and paved the way for his most successful years.
Image: imago images/Everett Collection
Angel over Berlin: 'Wings of Desire'
After winning the Golden Lion in Venice for "The State of Things," Wenders had one success after another. In Cannes, he received the Golden Palm for "Paris, Texas," and three years later in 1987 came his best-known film to date: "Wings of Desire." Starring Otto Sander (pictured right) and Bruno Ganz, the film about an angel in love is set in still-divided Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/Captital Pictures/CAP/RFS
The early work: 'Alice in the Cities'
Wenders had long been directing before he became a festival darling who churned out hits. As a young filmmaker, he shot films in Germany in black and white with a minimal budget. His sensitive 1974 film, "Alice in the Cities," about a writer who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young girl (played by Yella Rottländer), is considered the director's real breakthrough.
One year later, he released "Wrong Move," another collaboration with his friend, author Peter Handke, who won the Nobel Prize in 2019 and co-wrote several films with Wenders. "Wrong Move" is about a budding writer (Rüdiger Vogeler) who travels through Germany, making friends and having once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
In 1976, Wenders released "Kings of the Road," which launched him into the annals of fame as a director of the New German Cinema movement. Melancholic and dreamy, with characters that had never been seen before in German cinema, the movie shot in black and white goes on a three-hour minimalist journey like no other.
In 1977, the film "The American Friend" followed, which indicated where director Wim Wenders' journey would later take him: to the USA. With lead actors Bruno Ganz (left) and "Easy Rider" star Denis Hopper, Wenders shot a crime story about art fraud, male bonding and the dream of another life, far away from home.
Beyond the films that made him a major figure of the New Cinema Movement, Wenders also became famous later in his career for his documentary features. The documentary "Buena Vista Social Club," about a group of senior Cuban musicians, ravished the world in 1999.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Dance in 3D: 'Pina'
In the years that followed, Wim Wenders didn't manage to achieve the artistic intensity of his early career with his feature films, but his documentary films found international acclaim. As for "Buena Vista Social Club," the director also received an Oscar nomination for the 3D documentary "Pina" (2011) about the legendary dance troupe of the choreographer Pina Bausch.
Image: picture-alliances/dpa
Into photography: Wenders and Salgado
Another Oscar-nominated work, the 2014 documentary film "The Salt of the Earth" about the life of Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado won over critics and the public. With this film, Wenders, who is also a photographer who has exhibited internationally, once again proved that he is more than an average film director — and is an aficionado of multiple art forms.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Rangel
Still going strong in his 70s
Wim Wenders is still churning out first-rate flicks. Two recent feature films, "Every Thing Will Be Fine" (2015) and "Submergence" (2017, with Alicia Vikander, pictured) show that Wenders still has a love affair with dreamlike cinematic narratives, seemingly weightless images, and stories about people in tricky situations.
