Director Paul Thomas Anderson, affectionately known as PTA, has never won an Oscar, despite 11 career nominations for films such as Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza and There Will Be Blood.
But he will almost certainly go from bridesmaid to bride this year, as his latest film One Battle After Another is steam-rolling its way through awards season and could personally score him Oscars as the film’s writer, director and producer.
The movie, which struggled to break even despite rave reviews, follows a former revolutionary who reunites with his old crew to try and get his daughter back after her kidnap by a white supremacist group.
It’s likely to lead the field partly because of the sheer number of actors from the film in contention – a whopping 25% of the available acting nomination slots could go to Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro.