SAG Awards 2019 Nominations: A Star is Born Leads the Pack

In a half-crazy, half-predictable morning, the Screen Actors Guild Awards announced their nominees, and there’s both a fair share of expected results and head-scratchers. A Star is Born ended up being the most nominated film this morning with nods for Ensemble, Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actor. The next most nominated film, in a pleasant surprise, was BlacKkKlansman, which roosted a spot in the Ensemble category, and also landed John David Washington and Adam Driver nominations in Lead and Supporting Actor, respectfully.

Here is the list of nominations from six film categories:

Best Stunt Ensemble
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Black Panther
Mission: Impossible-Fallout

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Vice
Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
Margot Robbie, Mary Queen of Scots
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
Sam Elliott, A Star is Born
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Actress
Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Actor
Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Best Ensemble
A Star is Born
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
Crazy Rich Asians

For the surprise inclusions this year, John David Washington strikes back after missing out on Critics Choice, showing he is still a player for an Oscar nomination. Also, I guess the Ensemble category couldn’t think of any films that didn’t start with a letter past “C”, but that still means Crazy Rich Asians and Bohemian Rhapsody are recognized here, and BlacKkKlansman continues to show its strength in Best Picture after the votes today. In Supporting Actress, Emily Blunt made a big play with her Quiet Place nomination, and Margot Robbie, who was in the Oscar-hopefuls hospice, is now back on life-support with her nomination here. If she lands a BAFTA nod, she could strike at Oscars, too.

For the exclusions, there’s a lot to mull over here. No nominations for If Beale Street Could Talk hurts, and the same goes for First Man, which just bounced back hard with 10 key nominations at Critics Choice. Also, no nominations here for Widows pretty much leaves that film out for the rest of the year in the major categories. Where is Regina King for Supporting Actress? Did they just skip over Beale Street entirely? This is the first time she’s missing from any lists like these, as she’s been dominating the critics prizes and was nominated at both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice. Also Claire Foy missed out. Ethan Hawke shows he’s no longer an absolute lock for First Reformed, and while he’s been winning a lot of critics prizes, the buck may stop there for him on his run.

Now for the Ensemble nominations, why is The Favourite not worthy of an Ensemble nod when it’s already had three other nods? What makes Bohemian or Crazy Rich Asians a better ensemble than The Favourite? Or Vice, which has been on the attack the last week with 6 Globe nods and 8 Critics Choice nods? It had to settle for 2 today with Sam Rockwell also missing. What made Black Panther, which only received a nomination otherwise for its stunts, the film to nominate over these others? Well, I guess that’s up to the voting body, but still, a lot of shocks here in the top category.

The SAG awards will be handed out January 27th, and we’ll have a little stewing to do in some of these categories since the presumed frontrunners, like The Favorite for Ensemble and King for Supporting Actress, did not show up today.