26 Jan – After so long of having only artsy serious films and biopics gracing the Best Picture nominations, this year's Academy Awards sees several box office hits making it to the top, with two of them getting the most attention. On 24 January, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences announced the ten movies that have been nominated in the category this year, and among them, four of the movies nominated are considered both critical and box office successes. Two of them – the Tom Cruise-starrer "Top Gun: Maverick", as well as James Cameron's "Avatar: The Way of Water" are getting everybody excited for this year's event. "Top Gun: Maverick" producer Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't help but expressed elation for his first Oscar nomination, telling the media, "I've been doing this a long time and it finally got around to me." The producer is known for many box office hits that include franchises like "Bad Boys" and "Pirates of the Caribbean".
The film, which grossed USD 1.49 billion worldwide is also nominated in Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Original Song for Lady Gaga's "Hold My Hand". On the other hand, Cameron's "Avatar: The Way of Water" recently broke USD 2 billion at the box office, becoming the first movie in the pandemic era to do so. The movie is also nominated in the Best Production Design category, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound. It is noted that Cameron is no stranger to the Oscars, having won Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Director in 1998 for "Titanic", as well as being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing for "Avatar" in 2010. Among other movies nominated in the category include ""All Quiet on the Western Front", "The Banshees of Inisherin", "Everything Everywhere All at Once", "Elvis", and Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans".