Cillian Murphy is among the actors tipped to receive an Oscar nomination when they are unveiled on Tuesday.
The Cork-born actor has been widely acclaimed for his role in Christopher Nolan’s haunting historical epic Oppenheimer, in which he plays the eponymous nuclear physicist.
After his Best Actor win at the Golden Globe Awards earlier in January, Murphy is seen to be a favourite to triumph at the Oscars on 10 March. If he were to take home the golden statuette, he would make history as the first Irish-born actor to claim the award.
Despite a nod at the BAFTAs, fellow Irish actor Barry Keoghan looks an outside chance to secure a Best Actor nomination for his menacing turn in Saltburn.
Meanwhile, Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal also look to have a slender chance to obtain Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nods, respectively, for All of Us Strangers.
Paul Giamatti is gaining momentum in the Best Actor race after his win at the Critics Choice Awards for his performance in The Holdovers.
Nominees could also include Jeffrey Wright’s unwittingly popular author in American Fiction and Colman Domingo for his turn as a gay civil rights activist in Rustin.
Leonardo DiCaprio could also make the Best Actor list for Killers of the Flower Moon, but it’s a tough ask in a crowded year.
In the Best Actress race, Margot Robbie is widely tipped to receive a nod for the box-office and critical smash Barbie, while Emma Stone is also a dead cert for her no-holds-barred performance in the Irish co-production Poor Things.
Lily Gladstone, who plays a Native American whose tribe’s oil wealth is threatened by a series of murders in Martin Scorsese’s crime saga Killers of the Flower Moon, is also likely to join the race alongside Carey Mulligan (Maestro).
In the race for Best Picture, the Academy’s top prize, Oppenheimer appears to have the edge after a clutch of five Golden Globe awards and momentum on its side.
Nominations are widely expected for Poor Things, a female-focused take on the Frankenstein myth that is co-produced by the Dublin-based Element Pictures, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Christmas boarding school tale The Holdovers is already being spoken of as a durable seasonal classic, while the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, which sees Bradley Cooper starring and directing, also appears well placed.
The well-received French film Anatomy of a Fall, which won two Golden Globes including Best Screenplay, might fare well in a world where voters no longer seem scared of subtitles.
Between Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Past Lives, a Korean-American drama by Celine Song, the fight for the Best Picture Oscar could include three works directed by women, a historic first.
Over nine-and-a-half decades of awards, only 19 films by female directors have been nominated for the top prize.
The unveiling of the Oscar nominations will begin at 13.30pm GMT on Tuesday.
Additional reporting: AFP
