With ‘Mank,’ David Fincher Returns to the Best Director Oscars Race - Variety

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It’s been a decade since Fincher received a nomination for best director for “The Social Network,” a loss that still resonates with many awards enthusiasts today.

But it’s also possible, as with Robert DeNiro in “The Irishman” last year, he could be snubbed in the best actor category.

Production designer Donald Graham Burt, who won his first Academy Award with Fincher for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” along with Oscar-nominated set designer Jan Pascale (“Good Night, and Good Luck.”) leap out as the clear frontrunners for their respective categories.

Made to feel like any classic movie of the modern era, the sound team will be most definitively embraced while Emmy nominee Trish Summerville (HBO’s “Westworld”) is barreling towards her first Oscar nomination for best costumes.

The dialogue is rich and dense, and this is a passion project for Fincher, who was supposed to make this film following “The Game” in the late 1990s

As for Fincher himself, we may see a real battle in the best director field between him and Chloé Zhao for “Nomadland.” The two films, along with Netflix’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” from Aaron Sorkin and Amazon Studios’ “One Night in Miami” may be the ones to duke it out for the top prize