This past week, the Academy announced the recipients of this year’s honorary Oscars to be given in November. They are actress Glenn Close, director Ridley Scott, animator Floyd Norman, and producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler.

Now is the time to familiarize yourself with their work if you haven’t already.

Neither Glenn Close nor Ridley Scott should need an introduction as both have had laudatory careers for decades.

Close is tied with the late Peter O’Toole for the most Oscar nominations without a win. O’Toole, whose fabled career included the leads in such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, and The Lion in Winter was given an honorary Oscar twenty years after his seventh loss, earning his eighth four years after his honorary award. Close is the first to receive eight nominations without a win.

A three-time Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner, Close made her film debut at 35 playing Robin Williams’ mother in 1982’s The World According to Garp, a stunning performance for which she won the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics awards for Best Supporting Actress, losing only the National Society of Film Critics award among the major precursors to Jessica Lange in Tootsie. Lange, who had been nominated for Oscars in both lead for Frances and support for Tootsie, became the third double nominee among actresses and like Fay Bainter and Teresa Wright before her, won the Oscar.

Close was nominated in support in the next two years for The Big Chill and The Natural respectively, losing to Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously and Peggy Ashcroft in A Passage to India. Three years after that she received her first lead actress nomination for Fatal Attraction for which she was considered in a neck-to-race race with Holly Hunter in Broadcast News and Cher in Moonstruck. Cher won. The following year she was back with her second lead nomination, her fifth overall in seven years, for Dangerous Liaisons. She lost to Jodie Foster in The Accused. It would be thirteen years before she would receive another nod.

The actress ended her long streak of not being nominated for an Oscar with her nomination for 2011’s Albert Nobbs but she was an also-ran in a year in which the front-runners were Meryl Streep going for her third win with The Iron Lady and Viola Davis going for her first with The Help. Streep won.

Seven Years later Close was the favorite to finally win for 2018’s The Wife but she lost in an upset to Olivia Colman in The Favourite. Two years after that she was up for her supporting turn in Hillbilly Elegy lost handily to Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari. Now finally she will become an Oscar winner with no competition in the upcoming celebration of her exemplary career before the cameras.

Ridley Scott went unrecognized by the Academy for two of his best-remembered blockbuster hits, 1979’s Alien and 1982’s Blade Runner before finally being nominated for Best Director for 1991’s Thelma & Louise. He lost to Jonathan Demme for that year’s Best Picture winner, The Silence of the Lambs. Nine years later, he was nominated for directing 2000’s Best Picture winner, Gladiator, losing to rare double-nominee Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. Soderbergh had also been nominated for directing Erin Brockovich the same year.

Nominated again the following year for directing 2001’s Black Hawn Down, Scott lost to Ron Howard who won for directing that year’s Best Picture winner, A Beautiful Mind. His last nomination came for 2015’s The Martian. He lost that one to Alejandro G. Iñárritu for The Revenant,.

In recent years, he has been passed over for such films as The Last Duel, House of Gucci, and Gladiator II. The now 88-year-old director has The Dog Stars coming out this year with eight other films in various stages of development.

90-year-old Floyd Norman has never been nominated for an Oscar, but his long career as an animator includes such early works as 1959’s Sleeping Beauty and 1964’s Mary Poppins as well as such modern animated classics as 1996’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1998’s Mulan, and 2001’s Monsters, Inc. , all of which are available on home video.

Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler have just one Oscar nomination to their credit for 2023’s Past Lives which lost to Everything Everywhere All at Once but their long and impressive career includes such largely independent films as 1992’s Swoon, 1996’s I Shot Andy Warhol, 1998’s Happiness and Velvet Goldmine, 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, 2001’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2002’s Far from Heaven, 2004’s A Home at the Edge of the World, 2006’s Infamous, 2007’s I’m Not There, 2013’s Kill Your Darlings, 2014’s Still Alice, 2015’s Carol, 2017’s Wonderstruck, 2019’s Dark Waters, 2023’s May/December. 2024’s The Brutalist. and 2025’s The Materialists.

How many of Vachon’s and Koffler’s films have you seen? You have a few months to catch up enough to be informed by the time their honorary Oscars are presented to them.

Happy viewing.