Trivia with Corey! Test Your Knowledge of Cornell at the Oscars
Big Red history expert Corey Ryan Earle ’07 offers a challenging prelim on alums nominated for one of filmmaking’s highest honors
10 Questions • Level: Challenging
By Corey Ryan Earle ’07
The 97th Academy Awards—recognizing the best of cinema from 2024—are scheduled for March 2, 2025. Unfortunately, no Cornellians are nominated this year.
That said, journalist Keri Blakinger ’11, BA ’14, is a producer of I Am Ready, Warden, nominated for Best Documentary Short.
The film—which is currently streaming on Paramount+—tells the story of a death row prisoner whose case Blakinger (and fellow alum Maurice Chammah ’10) covered in a 2021 article for the Marshall Project.
(Due to Academy rules limiting the number of producers who can be included in a nomination, Blakinger’s name doesn’t appear on the Oscar ballot. The same rule impacted producer Ryan Silbert ’02 when God of Love won Best Live Action Short in 2011.)
Cornell’s next closest connection to this year’s awards might be the inclusion of Peter Yarrow ’59 as a character in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Actor Nick Pupo plays the late musician (of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame) in the film, which is nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture.
But over the years, many alumni have made their mark on Hollywood and on the Oscars.
And dozens have brought home a gold statuette, primarily for roles behind the camera.
(In 2024, the drama Oppenheimer—which was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won seven—had numerous historical Cornell connections.)
Think you’re a whiz at Big Red movie trivia? Test your knowledge in our Oscars-themed quiz.
And if you know of a Cornellian involved with one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, let us know in the comments!
An expert on Big Red lore, Corey Ryan Earle ’07 teaches “The First American University,” a wildly popular spring semester course on Cornell history.
Published February 18, 2025
This was awesome information. Great refresher on Oscar history for an aspiring creative like me (yes… I’m a life long learner) and for an artistic connection to Cornell.
Thanks,
Nuria Alvarez Grant, Class 1980
Franchot Tone asked his classmate Gene Tonkonogy to come to Hollywood with him. Gene declined, but distinguished himself by purchasing a British Virgin Island which was used as the set for the film “My Virgin Island “, buying many thousands of acres of land in the East Hampton woods in the 1950’s, and serving into his 90’s as a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.