Oscars 2021 Nominations: Steven Yeun, Riz Ahmed Score Historic Best Actor Nods

This is historic! Steven Yeun has become the first Asian-American to receive a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas announced the 93rd Academy Awards nominations in all 23 categories on Monday (Mar 15) morning from a remote feed in London.

The Walking Dead alum is singled out for his performance in the immigrant drama Minari, which is also vying for Best Picture, Best Director (Lee Isaac Chung), Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Supporting Actress for Youn Yuh-jung.

Youn, 73, is the first South Korean actress nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Yeun's fellow Best Actor nominee, Sound of Metal's Riz Ahmed, became the first person of Pakistani descent ever nominated for any Oscar. Sound of Metal tells the story of a heavy-metal drummer whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.

Mank, David Fincher’s black-and-white drama about the making of Citizen Kane, leads the race with 10 nominations while Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, Nomadland, Sound of Metal, The Father and The Trial of the Chicago 7 scored six nods each. All these films are contending for Best Picture alongside Promising Young Woman which received five nominations.

It's also a watershed year in the Best Director category. For the first time in the Oscars’ 93-year history, two women — Chloe Zhao for Nomadland, a drama bout van dwellers in recession-hit America, and Emerald Fennell for the feminist revenge Promising Young Woman — are up for the prize in the same year. Zhao and Chung’s nominations also marked the first time two Asian directors are gunning for the trophy in the same year.

Elsewhere, Chadwick Boseman is in the running for Best Actor for the jazz pic Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Boseman, who died in August at the age of 43, became the seventh performer to receive a posthumous nomination. Boseman's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom co-star Viola Davis snagged a Best Actress nod. Her latest nomination makes her the most nominated Black actress in Oscar history. Davis was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Doubt and Fences (which she won), and Best Actress for The Help.

Meanwhile, Derek Tsang’s Better Days, the school bullying drama from Hongkong, starring Zhou Dongyui and Jackson Yee, is up for Best International Feature Film. Other contenders in the category include Denmark’s Another Round, “Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Quo Vadis, Aida?, Romania’s Collective, and Tunisia’s The Man Who Sold His Skin.

Speaking of Hongkong, Do Not Split, a 35-minute piece on the pro-democracy movement in the city is nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category. Given the sensitive topic, it’s bound to ruffle the feathers of the Chinese government.

Here are the nominations in the major categories:

Best Picture

The Father

Judas and the Black Messiah

Mank

Minari

Nomadland

Promising Young Woman

Sound of Metal

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Director

Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round

David Fincher, Mank

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari

Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman

Best Actor

Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal

Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Anthony Hopkins,The Father

Gary Oldman, Mank

Steven Yeun, Minari

Best Actress

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Andra Day, The United States v. Billie Holiday

Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman

Frances McDormand, Nomadland

Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Best Supporting Actor

Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7

Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Leslie Odom Jr, One Night in Miami

Paul Raci, Sound of Metal

Lakeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy

Olivia Colman, The Father

Amanda Seyfried, Mank

Youn Yuh-Jung, Minari

Best International Feature Film

Another Round (Denmark)

Better Days (Hong Kong)

Collective (Romania)

The Man Who Sold His Skin (Tunisia)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Best Animated Feature Film

Onward

Over the Moon

Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Soul

Wolfwalkers

For the complete list of nominations, click here.

Photo: TPG News/Click Photos