Revisiting Julianne Moore’s 5 Oscar nominations in honor of ‘May December’

“May December,” the newest acclaimed drama film from Todd Haynes, is now available to stream on Netflix, and one of the film’s stars, Julianne Moore, is already an early favorite to receive a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her spellbinding performance. Let’s look back at her five Academy Award races and talk about why Moore finally won her first gold trophy in 2015 for “Still Alice” (2014).

Her first Oscar nomination came in 1998 in the Best Supporting Actress category for “Boogie Nights” (1997). Moore’s only Academy Award nom of the 1990s put her up against Joan Cusack for “In & Out,” Minnie Driver for “Good Will Hunting,” Gloria Stuart for “Titanic” and Kim Basinger for “L.A. Confidential.” Moore didn’t have a chance that first time around because Basinger dominated the category all season, her beloved film often showing up in the Best Picture and Best Director categories, while “Boogie Nights” only managed a handful of nominations.

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SEENope, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman don’t think they won their Oscars for their best performances

Moore had even less of a chance to win on her second Oscar nomination two years later, when she was recognized in the Lead Actress category for her performance in “The End of the Affair” (1999). She had a variety of excellent performances that year, including “Magnolia,” which earned Moore a Supporting Actress nomination at SAG, as well as “An Ideal Husband,” which got her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Her dramatic turn in “The End of the Affair” got the most momentum of her many films that year and rightfully earned her an Academy Award nomination. Sadly, Best Actress was the movie’s only top-of-the-line nomination, and she couldn’t compete with the flashier and more celebrated lead female performances of the year — Annette Bening in “American Beauty” and Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry,” the latter winning the gold trophy.

The most impressive showing at the Oscars for Moore yet came in 2003 when she received two nominations, one in Best Actress for “Far from Heaven” (2002) and one in Best Supporting Actress for “The Hours” (2002). This marked a rare circumstance in which an actor gives two acclaimed performances in a calendar year, and the academy recognizes him or her for both roles. One would assume this would finally be her moment at a victory, given she was double-nominated and on her third and fourth nominations, but weirdly, she again had close-to-zero chance in either category. The Supporting Actress race came down to Catherine Zeta-Jones for “Chicago” and Meryl Streep for “Adaptation,” both having taken home prizes at the precursor ceremonies, and Zeta-Jones won. The Lead Actress race came down to Nicole Kidman for “The Hours” and Renee Zellweger for “Chicago,” who both had also won big prizes that season. When presenter Denzel Washington announced the winner, he said, “By a nose, Nicole Kidman,” a reference to her prosthetic.

Moore continued doing good work in films the next few years, but she didn’t receive any genuine awards buzz until the early 2010s, when she got close to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for “A Single Man,” which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. A year later she was in the running for “The Kids Are All Right,” which earned her Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes and BAFTA. Soon thereafter Moore finally won some big prizes, but for a TV project — “Game Change,” in which she played Sarah Palin and took home awards from SAG, Golden Globes and Primetime Emmy Awards.

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Finally, when it came to movie awards, 2014 was Moore’s big moment, the actress appearing in “Maps to the Stars,” which earned her a Golden Globe nomination and the Best Actress win at the Cannes Film Festival. But it was her performance in “Still Alice” that gave her some of the best reviews of her career and allowed her to sweep the Best Actress category in early 2015, Moore winning at Golden Globes, Critics Choice, SAG, BAFTA, Film Independent Spirit and Oscars.

She got lucky in not having any significant competition in Best Actress that season, the other nominees in her category at the Academy Award being Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night,” Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything,” Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl” and Reese Witherspoon in “Wild.” Cotillard and Pike, let’s be honest, were just happy to be there, while Witherspoon already had won an Oscar for “Walk the Line.” Jones was probably in second place since she was the only person recognized for a film nominated in Best Picture, but she never gained enough traction to be a significant threat to Moore’s overdue victory. In Moore’s Academy Awards acceptance speech, she said, “I read an article that said that winning an Oscar could lead to living five years longer. If that’s true, I’d really like to thank the academy because my husband is younger than me.”

In the almost 10 years since Moore’s Oscar win, she’s finally back in the awards conversation in the Best Supporting Actress category for her meticulous performance in Netflix’s “May December,” starring Natalie Portman and Charles Melton, and which reunites her with her “Safe” and “Far from Heaven” director Todd Haynes. Moore plays Gracie, a woman who gained infamy when she was 36 years old because she started dating a 13-year-old boy. Some of her competition in the category will likely be Danielle Brooks for “The Color Purple,” Da’Vine Joy Randolph for “The Holdovers” and Emily Blunt for “Oppenheimer.” Does Moore have a shot at her sixth Oscar nomination? Only time will tell.

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