Ralph Fiennes: Finally earns another nomination

Ralph Fiennes received a lead actor Oscar nomination for his performance as a cardinal overseeing the selection of the next pope in “Conclave.” Fiennes has been revered for decades yet has received comparatively scant academy recognition.

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Fiennes was nominated twice previously for Oscars: supporting, for his blandly psychopathic commandant in “Schindler’s List” (1993), and lead, for his severely burned, lovesick cartographer in “The English Patient” (1996).

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“Schindler’s” and “English Patient” each won multiple Oscars, including best picture, but Fiennes lost to Tommy Lee Jones (“The Fugitive”) and Geoffrey Rush (“Shine”), respectively.

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Fiennes has received BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Emmy, Golden Globes and other nominations during the …

21st century

But the gap between his “Patient” and “Conclave” Oscar nominations lasted roughly …

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Timothée Chalamet. Or …

28 years

Even though Fiennes won rave reviews as a diplomat investigating his wife’s death in “The Constant Gardener” (2005) and as a charismatic concierge in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014). We have a theory that …

2005

… Academy members have been terrified since Fiennes first appeared as “Harry Potter” villain Voldemort and took the “he who must not be named” thing too far by refusing to vote for him.

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Perhaps his role as a man of the cloth in “Conclave” offset that energy. Depending on how and whom you count, previous nominations for actors who played priests are in the double digits, and …

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… of them (Spencer Tracy, “Boys Town”; Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, “Going My Way”) won. Nominations nearly vanished once the Catholic Church underwent more scrutiny, but …

2009

… maybe a supporting nomination for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s enigmatic priest accused of molestation in “Doubt” led the way for Fiennes’ faith-questioning, system-questioning cardinal in this year’s mix.