Kiwi talent nominated for Oscars

Kiwi film director Taika Waititi has been included in this year's list of nominees for the NZ...

Kiwi film director Taika Waititi has been nominated for several Academy Awards this year for his work on 'Jojo Rabbit'. Photo: NZ Herald

Hollywood darling Taika Waititi and Kiwi screenwriter Anthony McCarten are both nominated for Academy Awards this year.

The nominations, released overnight, reveal both Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) and McCarten (The Two Popes) will go head-to-head for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Jojo Rabbit has a total of six Oscar nods - including for Best Picture - and is also nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing and Production Design.

The Oscar nominations add to Waititi's ongoing filmmaking success.

Waititi's local hits Boy (2010) and Hunt For The Wilderpeople (2017) achieved international critical acclaim. In 2017, the New Zealander lent his distinctive directing style to the Marvel cinematic universe and directed Thor: Ragnarok.

The blockbuster went on to earn more than US $850 million ($1.3 billion) at the box office worldwide.

McCarten, who is nominated for his film The Two Popes, also penned screenplays for Bohemian Rhapsody, The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour. This year's nomination is the writer's fourth Oscar nomination. Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything earned him best picture nominations in 2017 and 2014.

The Two Popes is his second Oscar nomination in the best adapted screenplay category, with his first in 2014 for The Theory of Everything. He based the screenplay on Stephen Hawking's first wife Jane Hawking's memoir A Brief History of Time.

Scarlett Johansson has been nominated for both her first and second awards in the same year. Photo: Reuters

Scarlett Johansson has been nominated for both her leading role in Netflix's emotional drama Marriage Story, as well as her supporting role in director Waititi's WWII comedy, Jojo Rabbit.

She's the first actor in over a decade to pick up a double nomination since Aussie actress Cate Blanchett in 2008, and just the twelfth ever to make the elite club.

Others who have managed the feat include Jessica Lange, Sigourney Weaver, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Julianne Moore and Jamie Foxx.

On Twitter, fans congratulated the first-time nominee on the extraordinary achievement.

However, others have criticised the Academy for its almost entirely white line-up of nominees this year.

Just last week the BAFTAs sparked controversy with its all-white list of acting nominees and all-male list of directing nominees, but the Oscars appeared to follow suit.

Cynthia Erivo, who played American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in Harriet, is the only actor of colour to be nominated for an acting gong.

Lupita Nyong'o, Awkwafina, Jennifer Lopez and Eddie Murphy had also been favourites for their respective roles in Us, The Farewell, Hustlers and Dolemite Is My Name, but all four were snubbed.

The Farewell director Lulu Wang was also snubbed for Best Director, as well as Greta Gerwig, whose blockbuster adaptation of Little Women was nominated for Best Picture.

Those who watched the nominations live said it was ironic the Academy had Korean-American actor John Cho and Issa Rae, the star of the popular web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, announce the nominations.

"Congratulations to all those men," Rae quipped after reading the all-male list of Best Director nominees.

The 92nd Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 9 (US time).

The nominees
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