West Side Story nominated for seven Oscars

Steven Spielberg's scintillating retelling of West Side Story has earned itself seven nominations for the 94th Academy Awards, among them Best Picture... 60 years after Robert Wise's movie took home the top prize among its haul of 10 trophies.

With this nomination, Spielberg increases his Best Picture nods as producer to a record 11 movies.

If Spielberg's version wins the award, it will be the first time in Oscar history that the same source material has resulted in two Best Picture wins. Tipping the odds against WSS is that fact that only 10 musicals (out of 48 nominations) have won this most coveted of prizes in the Oscars' 94-year history. It's even rarer for remakes to win Best Picture - in fact, only movie has: Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006), adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs (2002) - so chances are slim. (Of course, fans of Spielberg's movie don't consider it to be a remake, rather a re-interpretation of the original stage material.)

Sadly, Rachel Zegler (Maria) was not nominated for an award, but co-star Ariana DeBose (Anita) was. Fans were also disappointed that Mike Faist (Riff) was not acknowledged in the Academy's announcement.

West Side Story nominations:

BEST PICTURE: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger
BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Ariana DeBose (Anita)
BEST DIRECTING: Steven Spielberg
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Paul Tazewell
SOUND: Tod A Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Janusz Kaminski
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Adam Stockhausen (Production Design), Rena DeAngelo (Set Decoration)

Elsewhere in the musicals stakes, Andrew Garfield is nominated for Best Actor for his leading role in Jonathan Larsen's tick, tick... BOOM!, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. There's also a nod for Best Editing. And if Miranda wins in his category of Best Original Song (for "Dos Oruguitas" from Encanto), he will join the rarified ranks of those who can claim EGOT status for winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Encanto is also recognized for Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film.