This morning the 2015 Oscar Nominees were announced, and just like any other year there’s plenty to celebrate, and many snubs to discuss.
The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman led the way with a staggering nine nominations each. The Imitation Game trailed closely with eight nominations. Boyhood and American Sniper had six nominations each, and then Foxcatcher Whiplash and The Theory Of Everything followed with five nominations. Selma was the lowest nominated Best Picture film with only two nominations. Nightcrawler only received one nomination, which was both shocking and disappointing to fans of the film such as myself.
The Best Picture race featured 8 nominations, with no real surprises with the nominees, although it was good to see Whiplash make the cut. It was disappointing to see the extra two possible spots vacant, considering worthy films such as Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler and Gone Girl were all deserving, possibly more so than American Sniper. Remove Clint Eastwood’s film and substitute all three of those, then you have quite a snug 10 Best Pictures that I could live with. It was good to see The Grand Budapest Hotel nominated, making it the first live action film of Anderson’s to be nominated (his only other was Fantastic Mr. Fox).
Bennett Miller shocked his way to his second Best Director nomination for Foxcatcher, bumping out Clint Eastwood, who many expected to be nominated, as well as the deserving Ava DuVernay, for Selma. Many were pleased that Wes Anderson received his first best directing nomination for The Grand Budapest Hotel, something that was long overdue.
I was shocked and disappointed to see Jake Gyllenhaal snubbed for Best Actor for Nightcrawler, which was one of my favorite performances of the year. In his place was Bradley Cooper for American Sniper. It was a tough race, with Michael Keaton, Steve Carell, Eddie Redmayne, and Benedict Cumberbatch seeming like locks from the get-go. This left one spot, ultimately leaving either Gyllenhaal, David Oyelowo, or Ralph Fiennes unfairly snubbed. All three would be nominated during a lesser year, but unfortunately this was one of the most competitive Best Actor races in history. I don’t know if Cooper deserves it more than the three previously mentioned snubbed actors, but that makes it three in a row for Bradley Cooper, only the 21st actor to do so.
The Best Actress race was mostly set with Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Reese Witherspoon (Wild). The final spot was expected to come from Jennifer Aniston (Cake), but the Oscar’s actually vouched for Marion Cotillard’s exceptional performance in Two Days, One Night, which is one of the rare surprises that the Academy got right this year.
The Best Supporting Actor category was also set in stone with nominations given to J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), Edward Norton (Birdman), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) and Robert Duvall (The Judge). Some people were iffy on Robert Duvall, but no one else asides from Tom Wilkinson (Selma) made a competitive push for the final spot, though I would have loved to see Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice) sneak in here.
The Best Supporting Actress race featured a shocker with Laura Dern (Wild) pushing out both Amy Adams (Big Eyes) and Emily Blunt (Into The Woods), but Dern used her limited screen time to make a strong emotional impact. So I think The Academy made the right call nominating her.
For Documentary, Citizenfour seem the favorite to take home the prize, but I was surprised to see no love for Life Itself, the Roger Ebert documentary, a film I figured would resonate higher with Oscar voters. It was also surprising to see a lack of Force Majeure in Best Foreign Language Film.
The biggest snub of this year has to be the glaring omission of The Lego Movie for Best Animated Feature, with the honor instead going to Big Hero 6, How To Train Your Dragon 2, The Boxtrolls, Song Of The Sea, and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya. It’s hard to comprehend The Lego Movie being left out, as it was just a surprisingly great and clever piece of animated filmmaking.
We’ll have our Oscar predictions coming soon, but in the meantime, check out the full list of nominations posted below.
2015 Oscar Nominations:
Best Picture:
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory Of Everything
Whiplash
Directing:
Alejandro G. Iñárritu – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Birdman
Bennett Miller – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Norten Tyldum – The Imitation Game
Actor:
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton – Birdman
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory Of Everything
Actress:
Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones – The Theory Of Everything
Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
Actor – Supporting Role:
Robert Duvall – The Judge
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash
Actress – Supporting Role:
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Laura Dern – Wild
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game
Emma Stone – Birdman
Meryl Streep – Into The Woods
Animated Feature Film:
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How To Train Your Dragon 2
Song Of The Sea
The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
Cinematography:
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ida
Mr. Turner
Unbroken
Costume Design:
Milena Canonero – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mark Bridges – Inherent Vice
Colleen Atwood – Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard – Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran – Mr. Turner
Documentary Feature:
Citizenfour
Last Days In Vietnam
Virunga
The Salt Of The Earth
Finding Vivian Maier
Documentary Short Subject:
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper
White Earth
Film Editing:
Joel Cox and Gary Roach – American Sniper
Sandra Adair – Boyhood
Barney Pilling – The Grand Budapest Hotel
William Goldenberg – The Imitation Game
Tom Cross – Whiplash
Foreign Language Film:
Ida
Leviathan
Tangerines
Wild Tales
Timbuktu
Makeup and Hairstyling:
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard – Foxcatcher
Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White – Guardians of the Galaxy
Music – Original Score:
Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Gary Yershon – Mr Turner
Jóhann Jóhannsson – The Theory of Everything
Music – Original Song:
“Everything Is Awesome” by Shawn Patterson – The Lego Movie
“Glory” by Common and John Legend – Selma
“Grateful” by Diane Warren – Beyond the Lights
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond – Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Production Design:
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Production design: Adam Stockhausen, Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game – Production design: Maria Djurkovic, Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar – Production design: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
Into the Woods – Production design: Dennis Gassner, Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Mr. Turner – Production design: Suzie Davies, Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts
Short Film – Animated:
The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees
The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
Feast – Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
A Single Life – Joris Oprins
Short Film – Live Action:
Aya – Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
Butter lamp – Hu Wei and Julien Féret
Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby and James Lucas
Sound Editing:
American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
Birdman – Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
Interstellar – Richard King
Unbroken – Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro
Sound Mixing:
American Sniper – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
Birdman – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
Interstellar – Garry A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley
Visual Effects:
Captain America: Winter Soldier – Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
Dawn Of The Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
Guardians Of the Galaxy – Stephanie Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
Interstellar – Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
X-Men: Days Of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer
Writing – Adapted Screenplay:
Jason Hall – American Sniper
Graham Moore – The Imitation Game
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash
Writing – Original Screenplay:
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler
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