2023 PGA Awards nominations: Four sequels — and two blatant omissions

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) has announced the nominations in the Movies and Television categories for the 34th Annual Producers Guild Awards to be held on Saturday, February 25, 2023 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

As previously announced, the Producers Guild will also use the February ceremony to present special recognition to high-performing producers and executives who have made their undeniable mark on the industry. This year’s honorees include Tom Cruise (David O. Selznick Achievement Award), Mindy Kaling (Norman Lear Achievement Award), and Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy (Milestone Award). “Till” receives the Stanley Kramer Award sponsored by Delta Air Lines.

After strong performances in the Golden Globes and SAG Awards nominations, the PGA Awards film nominations show that three films remain in the running when Oscar voting begins on January 12: Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. ‘ and Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ all made expected appearances on the Producers Guild of America list of ten films vying for the night’s biggest award, the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Motion Picture Producer.

After poor performances in the Golden Globes and SAG Awards nominations, three box office hits, all sequels, make it: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water (Disney), Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney) and Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount) by DGA nominee Joseph Kosinski. Assuming all three end up in the best picture race on the morning of January 24th, there will be plenty of mainstream films to get excited about on Oscars night on March 12th.

Likewise, Netflix is ​​pleased to report that Rian Johnson’s popular sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, not only performed well in theaters during the Thanksgiving holiday week, but also performed well on the platform (which neither won nor landed a Globe SAG nod) surpassed the original with a PGA nomination. In all likelihood, “Glass Onion” is fighting with “Wakanda Forever” for the 10th BP slot.

And the highest-grossing original film of the year continues to roll: Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” (Warner Bros., $282 million worldwide), starring Globe-winner and SAG nominee Austin Butler, who has neither a SAG ensemble slot nor a DGA nomination received Luhrmann. But the support of the craft, producers, and actors should easily earn a place in the best picture race.

On the art film side, it came as no surprise that the exhilarating “TÁR” (Focus Features), starring high-profile Globe winner and SAG nominee Cate Blanchett, was embraced by PGA voters. But Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale (A24, $8.6 million domestic) may have more support than expected outside of the hair & makeup and acting categories, where Brendan Fraser and Hong Chau are strong contenders.

PGA voters tend to be more male, white and mainstream than the Academy. This may account for the shocking omission of two films led by women: Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” which made it to the SAG Ensemble but received no SAG acting nomination, and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King, which only earned a SAG Leading Female nomination for Viola Davis. Neither landed a DGA nomination.

That’s a sign of weakness for both films, even though the Academy voters are younger, more international, and more diverse. However, the stats are still damning: After all the inclusion efforts since 2015, it’s the Oscar voters 66 percent male and 81 percent white.

Are these films penalized for being feminist or for being at the bottom of the alphabet? Surprisingly, the Academy portal is sorted alphabetically. This favors “Banshees of Inisherin” over anything that starts with W. “Women Talking” falls into the Oscar-friendly drama category, while “The Woman King” is an historical action-epic about female warriors in Africa, comparable to Oscar-winning “Gladiator” or “Braveheart”.

Even foreign-language films do not make it into the top ten of the PGA. In 2019, “Parasite,” the film that eventually won the Academy Award for Best Picture, was nominated, while “1917” won.

While the Guild’s nominations are often seen as an important benchmark for which films are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, as the Guild has picked 23 of the last 33 Best Picture winners (including last year’s “CODA”) do so the 10 PGA nominees don’t always line up with the Best Picture list (also guaranteed 10 nominees this year). In 2022, the guild nominated “Tick Tick Boom” and “Being the Ricardos,” both of which didn’t make the final cut at the Oscars, but snubbed “Nightmare Alley,” which it did (It takes a little under 900 votes to be in it to land BP). That being said, the Oscar winner is almost always a PGA nominee.

Feature film nominees are:

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Motion Picture Producer

• “Avatar: The Way of Water”
• “The Banshees of Inisherin”
• “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
• “Elvis”
• “Everything everywhere at once”
• “The Fable Men”
• “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
• “TAR”
• “Top Gun: Maverick”
• “The whale”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Feature Films

• “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
• “Marcel the Shell with shoes on”
• “Minions: The Rise of Gru”
• “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
• “To redden”

The following documentary film nominees were announced back in December. Since then, all but “Nothing Compares” have been shortlisted for the 95th Oscars. Since Laura Poitras’ ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ didn’t make it to this awards show, the PGA Awards could be the reason her supposed main competitor for Best Documentary ‘All That Breathes’ came out on top. Though the rest of the nominees are also well-suited for an Oscar nomination and could use a PGA Awards win to get more attention from overlapping Academy members before final Oscar voting begins.

The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Films

• “Everything That Breathes”
• “descendant”
• “Fire of Love”
• “Navalny”
• “Nothing Compares”
• “declining”
• “The Territory”

When it comes to TV nominations for the PGA Awards, the Producers Guild focuses primarily on titles that won the Emmys last year, from the final season of Ozark to the spate of limited series that came out last spring , like “The Dropout” and “Pam & Tommy.”

However, a look at the list of nominees also offers a good glimpse of what new TV shows could be entering the Emmys race this fall.

Final Voting for Theatrical Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Documentary Film, TV Series/Special, Streamed or Televised Film ends February 17, 2023; Final voting for Children’s, Short Form and Sports programming closes on February 10, 2023. Winners in these categories will be announced at the 34th Annual Producers Guild Awards on February 25, 2023.

TV nominees are:

Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama

• “Andor”
• “Better call Saul”
• “Ozark”
• “Severance pay”
• “The White Lotus”

Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy

• “Abbott Elementary School”
• “bary”
• “The bear”
• “hacks”
• “Only Murders in the Building”

David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited Edition Television Series or Anthology

• “Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer”
• “The Dropout”
• “Invent Anna”
• “Obi Wan Kenobi”
• “Pam and Tommy”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures

• “Fire Island”
• “Hocus Pocus 2”
• “Pinocchio”
• “Prey”
• “Strange: The Al Yankovic Story”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction

• “30 for 30”
• “60 minutes”
• “George Carlin’s American Dream”
• “Lucy and Desi”
• “Stanley Tucci: In Search of Italy”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television

• “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
• “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
• “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”
• “Saturday Night Live”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Game and Competition Television

• “The Amazing Race”
• “Lizzo takes care of the big grrrls”
• “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars”
• “top chef”
• “The voice”

The following nominees were previously announced.

The award for outstanding sports program

• “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”
• “Hard Knocks: Detroit Lions Training Camp”
• “Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers”
• “McEnroe”
• “Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off”

The award for outstanding children’s program

• “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock”
• “Green Eggs and Ham”
• “Sesame Street”
• “Snoopy Presents: It’s the Little Things, Charlie Brown”
• “Waffles + Mochis Restaurant”

The Award for Outstanding Short Form Program

• “Better Call Saul: Filmmaker Training”
• “Love, Death + Robots”
• “Only Murders in the Building: A Killer Question”
• “The #ComingTogether Word of the Day on Sesame Street”
• “Tales of the Jedi”

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