First-time acting nominees dominate the 2023 Oscars nominations

From Michelle Yeoh to Brendan Fraser, it's a big year for first-time nominees.
 By 
Belen Edwards
 on 
Five stills: A woman in an Elvis suit and pink wig, a man in a Hawaiian shirt, a woman in a martial arts pose with a googly eye on her head, a man in an airport hallway with a backpack on, a sad man in front of the ocean.
Stephanie Hsu, Brian Tyree Henry, Michelle Yeoh, Paul Mescal, and Colin Farrell are all first-time Oscar nominees. Credit: Mashable composite; A24 / Apple TV+ / A24 / A24 / Searchlight Pictures

An astonishing majority of the 2023 Oscar nominees in acting categories received their first-ever Oscar nominations today.

There are 20 spots across four acting categories — Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress — and this year, 16 of those spots went to first-time nominees.

Oscar frontrunners Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Banshees of Inisherin scored four acting nominations each, all for first-time nominees. For Everything Everywhere All At Once, these are Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. For The Banshees of Inisherin, they are Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, and Barry Keoghan.


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The entire Best Actor lineup is made of first-time Oscar nominees, including Farrell, Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Bill Nighy (Living), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Austin Butler (Elvis). Other first-time nominees include Hong Chau for The Whale, Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway, Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie, and Ana de Armas for Blonde.

The large number of first-time nominees is a breath of fresh air. They give us a chance to celebrate industry veterans like Yeoh, Quan, and Fraser, as well as younger actors with fewer feature films under their belt like Mescal, Hsu, and Butler.

Of the four nominees who have already been nominated for Academy Awards — Cate Blanchett (TÁR), Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans), Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans) — only Blanchett has ever won. Because of this, it's possible we'll seeing a lineup of four first-time Oscar winners come the 95th Academy Awards.

Topics Film Oscars

A woman in a white sweater with shoulder-length brown hair.
Belen Edwards
Entertainment Reporter

Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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