The nominations for the 2021 Academy Awards were released today and with them came a few surprises, among them that the sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm got some love from The Academy. Sacha Baron Cohen‘s follow-up had his co-star Maria Bakalova nominated in the Best Actress in a Supporting Role while the writers for the movie also nabbed a Best Adapted Screenplay. That later nod for the film has put the movie into very distinguished company in one record book while also shattering another record all its own in terms of credited writers in one nomination.
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Typically when a film is nominated in either screenplay category it has usually just one or two writers nominated, but sometimes there can be more especially with how the screenplay by/story by credits breakdown (all of whom would win the prize in the end). Prior to this year the most people every nominated for writing one script was with the original Toy Story in 1995 which saw seven different persons nominated for writing the movie including Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, Andrew Stanton & Joss Whedon for the screenplay credit and Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft & Stanton for the story. Now, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm has broken that record with NINE total persons nominated for the award for a single film’s script.
Listed on the card for the Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for the film are “Screenplay by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Swimer, Peter Baynham, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Mazer, Jena Friedman & Lee Kern” and “Story by: Baron Cohen, Hines, Swimer & Nina Pedrad.” Even the original Borat back in 2005 only had five nominated (four in Screenplay By and one more nominee for Story).
In the somewhat unlikely event that Borat wins the award this year (it’s up against heavyweights like Nomadland and One Night in Miami) it would further destroy the record as the most writers to be awarded an Oscar for writing the same script at once is tied at four across multiple titles.
That’s not all though! As pointed out by Twitter user @RussellHFilm, by securing the Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for its second movie, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and the 2006 original Borat movie mark one of the rare times that the first two films in a series have been nominated in either of the screenplay categories. As a result, Borat joins a small camp that includes the first two “Godfather” movies and the first two “Thin Man” films. Other franchises have had two movies be nominated, including The Lord of the Rings and Toy Story, but neither of them secured writing nominations for the first two films in the series. Assuming that a third Borat movie never happens (or, if it does, that it is also nominated), the two films could become the only “full series” to have each nominated in the category.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video. The 93rd Academy Awards will kick off on April 25.
