The 2025 Oscar nominations may still be several months away, but one of the stars of Dune: Part Two is already making his expectations for them known. In a recent interview with Variety, Josh Brolin said that he will take drastic action if Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve doesn’t receive a Best Director nomination for his work on the film. “If he doesn’t get nominated this year, I’ll quit acting,” the actor announced.
Brolin went on to explain why he believes Villeneuve deserves the kind of critical recognition for Dune: Part Two that an Oscar nomination would provide. “It was a better movie than the first one. When I watched it, it felt like my brain was broken open. It’s masterful, and Denis is one of our master filmmakers,” Brolin argued. “If the Academy Awards have any meaning whatsoever, they’ll recognize him.”
It is, of course, worth noting that 2021’s Dune: Part One received a total of 10 Oscar nominations in 2022. It went on to win the Oscars for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography. Villeneuve was nominated for the film in the Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay categories that year, but he pointedly didn’t receive a Best Director nomination. That award ended up going in 2022 to Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog, and Villeneuve has, in fact, only ever been nominated for Best Director once in 2017 for directing the acclaimed sci-fi drama Arrival.
Villeneuve and Brolin, notably, have a history together that extends beyond the Dune films. The duo collaborated for the first time on 2015’s Sicario. Their work together on Dune: Part One, therefore, marked a reunion for the two artists. To Brolin’s credit, while Dune: Part One received mostly positive reviews when it was released, Dune: Part Two was indeed widely recognized as an even more astonishing achievement than its predecessor when it hit theaters earlier this year.
Whether or not that opinion is eventually reflected in the film’s Oscar nominations and wins remains to be seen. Now, though, fans at least know one person who will be unhappy if Villeneuve is once again not recognized for his work.
Dune: Part Two is streaming now on Max.