Diversity Rankings of 2022 Oscar Nominees

Mediaversity’s Guide to the 94th Academy Awards, Best Picture

Mediaversity Reviews
3 min readMar 23, 2022

Written by Li Lai

All years: 2024 / 2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019

Given how the Oscars continue to hold real influence over the film industry, looking at the slate of pictures deemed “award-worthy” each year is one of the many benchmarks we can use to measure progress toward inclusive storytelling. At Mediaversity Reviews, in fact, diversity is the main thing we evaluate films on. Our grades take an intersectional look at not just technical merit, but gender parity and racial diversity, too. Representation of LGBTQ communities, people with disabilities, minority religions, adults over 50, and diverse body shapes are also factored in. (You can learn more about how we grade here.)

As we head into Oscar weekend, let’s take a look at how the 94th Academy Awards fares on inclusiveness among its Best Picture nominees. The average Mediaversity grade was a C+ (3.29/5). This takes us down a notch from last year’s B- (3.72/5), which saw inclusive films like Minari and Nomadland break barriers. Still, a C+ does stay in line with the Best Picture nominee averages in recent years, which tend to fluctuate between a C- and C+.

Without further ado…

Best Picture Nominees by Mediaversity Grade

Click image to read the full diversity review.

Drive My Car (B+), King Richard (B+)
Belfast (B), CODA (B), Don’t Look Up (B-)
The Power of the Dog (C+), Dune (C)
West Side Story (C), Nightmare Alley (D), Licorice Pizza (F)

Best Picture Nominees by Mediaversity Score

Films are scored on a scale of 1–5.

Stacked bar chart of Best Picture nominee, broken out by category. Click below link to download the spreadsheet
Click here to download data (.xlsx)

Curious how this compares to past years? Click to see our Best Picture nominee diversity rankings for 2021, 2020, and 2019!

Mediaversity Reviews grades TV & films on gender, race, LGBTQ, disability, and more. Follow us on Bluesky, Twitter, and Facebook to join the conversation!

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