The nominees for the 89th
annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday. Moonlight
received 8 nominations, including a Best Picture nod.
La La Land earned 14
nominations, tying the musical with Titanic and All About
Eve for the greatest number of nominations for a film.
Moonlight and La La Land will
compete against Arrival, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge,
Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Lion and
Manchester by the Sea in the Best Picture category.
Damien Chazelle (La La Land) and
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) are also competing for the best
director prize.
Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play
In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Moonlight, written
and directed by Barry Jenkins, follows an African-American man
(played by Trevante Rhodes) who struggles to come out gay over three
periods of his life while growing up in a rough neighborhood of
Miami. Andre Holland, Ashton Sanders and Alex R. Hibbert also star
in the film.
UPDATE: A previous version of this
story stated that Moonlight had nine Oscar nominations. It
had eight. We apologize for the error.