Latine Actors Make History at Oscars With Most Acting Nominations in Single Year — See the Nominees
HOLLYWOOD, CA - March 27, 2022: Oscar statuettes sit on display backstage during the show at the 94th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 27, 2022. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Oscar nominations for the upcoming 97th Academy Awards were announced Thursday morning (January 23), and a handful of talented Latine actors earned nods. This also makes it the most acting nominations in a single year at the Academy Awards by Latine actors. To give you some context, when it comes to Latine actors, in 2024 there were only two nominees, one nominee in 2023, one nominee in 2022, and two nominees in 2019. More information on nominees and winners can be found here.
In the Best Actor category, Colman Domingo, who is Afro-Latino, landed the second nomination of his career for his role in the drama Sing Sing. Last year, Domingo was nominated in the same category for his role as civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in the biopic Rustin. His nomination makes him the first Afro-Latino to be a two-time nominee for Best Actor.
Three Latinas picked up their first Oscar nominations – Fernanda Torres, Zoe Saldaña, and Monica Barbaro. Torres, who is Brazilian, was nominated in the Best Actress category for her performance in the drama I’m Still Here, which also earned a Best Picture nomination and a Best International Film nod for Brazil. She follows in her mothers’ footsteps 26 years after she, Fernanda Montenegro, was nominated for an Oscar.
Saldaña, who is Dominican and Puerto Rican, was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in the Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez. This is her first Oscar nomination and it comes at the heels of her winning her first Golden Globe for the same movie.
Barbaro, who has Mexican and Nicaraguan roots, was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role as folk musician Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown.
Outside of acting, Argentine visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman earned his fourth Oscar nomination in the Best Visual Effects category for his work on Wicked. Helman’s other nominations were for George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.
Also, songwriter Adrian Quesada, who has Mexican roots, landed his first Oscar nomination for co-writing the song “Like a Bird” for the film Sing Sing.
The 97th Academy Awards ceremony broadcasts live on March 2, 2025 on ABC at 7 p.m. EST.