2018 Oscar Nominations: ‘The Shape of Water’ Leads the Pack

• “The Shape of Water” received 13 Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning. The 90th Academy Awards will be held on March 4.

• “Dunkirk,” which got eight nominations, and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” which received seven, also emerged as strong contenders.

• Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman, Saoirse Ronan and Daniel Kaluuya were among the acting nominees.

• Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) were each nominated for best director and best original screenplay.

Looking for the film to beat.

“The Shape of Water,” a low-budget fantasy about a mute janitor who falls in love with an imprisoned sea creature, became 2017’s most decorated film on Tuesday, receiving 13 nominations from Oscar voters, one fewer than the record for the most in Academy Awards history.

But the contentious revenge drama “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” also emerged as a very strong contender, receiving seven Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. “Dunkirk” received eight nominations, including best picture.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences allows the best picture category to have as many as 10 or as few as five nominees, depending on how the organization’s 8,400 members spread their support. (There were nine last year.) This time around nine movies were nominated. Rounding out the category were “Call Me by Your Name,” “Darkest Hour,” “Get Out,” “Lady Bird,” “Phantom Thread” and “The Post.”

Campaigning for the 90th Academy Awards has been going on in Hollywood for five months, with films falling over themselves to claim the cultural zeitgeist. “Get Out” is about racism and cultural appropriation, the film’s get-out-the-vote team says, but also (in this #MeToo moment) about the abuse of power. “Three Billboards,” which won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, sees itself as the most topical: it features a woman demanding attention be placed on a sexual predator, red state anger and commentary about racist policing. Others say the crown should go to “The Post,” with its depiction of a woman coming into her own as a leader and taking a stand against the kind of attacks on journalists that resonate today.

And don’t forget “Lady Bird,” with its nuanced mother-daughter relationship and self-confident central character.

The nominations meant the end of the road for hopefuls like “Detroit,” “All the Money in the World,” “Wind River” and “Wonder Woman,” all of which campaigned for votes. (They can always hope for an envelope mix-up.)

McDormand, Oldman lead acting nominees.

Frances McDormand, a four-time nominee and a winner for “Fargo” in 1997, was nominated for her lead performance in “Three Billboards.” She has already won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild trophies for the role. Joining her were Saoirse Ronan for “Lady Bird,” Sally Hawkins for “The Shape of Water,” Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”) and Meryl Streep (“The Post”).

Gary Oldman’s performance as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour” landed him a best actor nod. He was joined in the category by Timothée Chalamet (“Call Me by Your Name”), Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”), Daniel Day-Lewis (“Phantom Thread”) and Denzel Washington (“Roman J. Israel, Esq.”). James Franco (“The Disaster Artist”) was notably left out. Mr. Franco’s inclusion would have put the academy in an uncomfortable spot; at least five women have accused him of inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior, allegations his lawyer has disputed. Representatives for Mr. Franco have referred reporters to his statements on late-night shows.

Many academy voters have long insisted that art should be separated from the artist — that the Oscars should be about assessing the caliber of work and that concerns about offscreen behavior should be cleaved away. Just last year, voters overlooked Casey Affleck’s past settlements with women who accused him of sexual harassment to name him best actor.

But that stance has been harder to maintain as women have come forward in recent months to accuse men like Harvey Weinstein, Brett Ratner and James Toback of sexual misconduct. Many of these men — Mr. Weinstein, most notably — used the Oscars as a shield. The academy kicked him out in October.

Keeping an eye on diversity.

In wake of the #OscarsSoWhite backlash in 2015 and 2016, the academy mounted an effort to double female and minority membership. But even after two years of the initiative, the academy remains 72 percent male and 87 percent white.

“Get Out,” a film that is at once a horror movie and a commentary on liberal racism, received four nominations, including for best picture and best actor. Minority actors who received nominations included Mr. Kaluuya, Mr. Washington, Mary J. Blige (“Mudbound”) and Octavia Spencer (“The Shape of Water”).

A broad range of choices for director.

Hollywood’s best shot at showing that it is serious about inviting more women and people of color into its rarefied top ranks may come from the directing category. Greta Gerwig, who directed and wrote “Lady Bird,” and Jordan Peele, the African-American director and writer behind “Get Out,” were each recognized in the director and original screenplay categories.

The Mexican director Guillermo del Toro snagged a nomination for willing “The Shape of Water” into existence; he won at the Golden Globes. Paul Thomas Anderson (“Phantom Thread”) and Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”) were also nominated.

The streaming insurgency.

The academy’s old guard has resisted a push by Netflix to join the best picture club, arguing that, since Netflix only gives its films token releases in theaters, its offerings should be better considered by Emmy voters. Netflix has doggedly campaigned for Oscars, though, and last year won the documentary short prize for “The White Helmets.”

This year, Netflix was hoping for its first best picture nomination for “Mudbound.” That didn’t happen but the film received attention in the cinematography, adapted screenplay and original song categories, in addition to Ms. Blige’s nomination. Netflix also has two documentaries vying for the Oscar: “Icarus,” about Russian doping in sports, and “Strong Island,” about the 1992 murder of a young black man.

For its part, Amazon has aggressively pushed “The Big Sick,” nominated for best original screenplay, as a best picture contender, despite the academy’s aversion to comedies. But Amazon is already ahead of Netflix in its campaign to be taken seriously by the film establishment. Amazon, which has allowed its films to play extensively in theaters before appearing online, won three Oscars last year. Two were for “Manchester by the Sea” and one for “The Salesman,” a foreign film.