The candy-colored love letter to musicals "La La Land" landed a record-tying 14 Academy Award nominations on Tuesday, while a notably more diverse field of nominees brushed off two straight years of "OscarsSoWhite" backlash.
"La La Land" matched "Titanic" and "All About Eve" for most nominations ever, earning nods for best picture, stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, its jazz-infused songs and its 32-year-old writer-director, Damien Chazelle.
"I'm in Beijing right now. This only adds to the disorientation," Chazelle said by phone Tuesday. "All that I have in my head is 'thank you' a million times over."
In stark contrast to the last two years of all-white acting nominees, seven actors of color were nominated out of the 20 actors. A record six black actors were nominated ("Fences" stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris of "Moonlight," Ruth Negga of "Loving" and Octavia Spencer of "Hidden Figures"), as was Dev Patel, the British-Indian star of "Lion."
A trio of acclaimed films led the overhaul, foremost among them Barry Jenkins' luminous coming-of-age portrait "Moonlight." Its eight nominations, including best picture, tied for the second most nods. Denzel Washington's fiery August Wilson adaptation "Fences" and Theodore Melfi's crowd-pleasing African American mathematician drama, "Hidden Figures," were also showered with nominations, including best picture.
Nine films out of a possible ten were nominated for best picture. The others were: Quebec director Denis Villeneuve's cerebral alien thriller "Arrival" — which was produced mainly in Montreal — Kenneth Lonergan's New England family drama "Manchester by the Sea," the West Texas heist thriller "Hell or High Water," the "Lion," and Mel Gibson's World War II drama "Hacksaw Ridge."
"Arrival" tied "Moonlight" for the second most nominees with eight nods — including a Best Director nomination for Villeneuve. His 2010 film "Incendies" was nominated in the Best Foreign Language category that year.
Its five-time nominated star, Amy Adams, however, was left out of the competitive best actress category.
Instead, Meryl Streep — whom President Donald Trump recently derided as "overrated" — landed her 20th nomination. Her performance in "Florence Foster Jenkins" was among the best actress nominees that included Stone, Natalie Portman ("Jackie"), Ruth Negga ("Loving") and Isabelle Huppert ("Elle"). Also left out was Annette Bening for "20th Century Women."
Best actor favorites Washington, Gosling and Casey Affleck ("Manchester by the Sea") were joined by Garfield and Viggo Mortensen ("Captain Fantastic"). Along with Ali and Patel, the best supporting actor nominees are Lucas Hedges ("Manchester by the Sea"), Michael Shannon ("Nocturnal Animals") and Jeff Bridges ("Hell or High Water").
Viola Davis, the supporting actress front-runner for her performance in "Fences," notched the expected nomination. Also up for the category are Harris, Spencer, Nicole Kidman ("Lion") and Michelle Williams ("Manchester by the Sea").