Birdman, Grand Budapest lead a field with few surprises
| 1 | Birdman | 9 noms |
| The Grand Budapest Hotel | 9 noms | |
| 3 | The Imitation Game | 8 noms |
| 4 | American Sniper | 6 noms |
| Boyhood | 6 noms |
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for their 87th Academy Awards early Thursday morning, recognizing the best films, filmmakers, and on- and off-screen talent of 2014. Leading the way were the duo of Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which each picked up nine nominations overall, topping this year's field.
Both of those films were—as widely expected—among eight nominees for best picture this year, as were longtime Oscar favorite Boyhood and awards-friendly biopics like The Imitation Game, Selma, and The Theory of Everything. In fact, few of the Academy's choices in any categories this year provided much in the way of surprises.
Listed below are the 2015 Academy Award nominees in all 24 categories.
Best picture and director
Best picture
| Metascore / Film / Producers | Watch It | |
|---|---|---|
| American Sniper Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan | ||
| Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) AG Iñárritu, J. Lesher and J.W. Skotchdopole |   |
|
| Boyhood Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland |  |
|
| The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson | |
|
| The Imitation Game Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman | ||
| Selma Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner | ||
| The Theory of Everything Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten | ||
| Whiplash Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook and David Lancaster | ||
The Academy's eight best picture entries (down from nine in each of the previous three years) generally reflect the films receiving the most recognition elsewhere on the awards circuit—in other words, there were few surprises here. The films most heralded elsewhere but omitted here are Nightcrawler and David Fincher's Gone Girl. And the Academy didn't bite (here or in most categories) on seemingly Oscar-ready films like Mr. Turner and Unbroken.
Director
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals* | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Wes Anderson | The Grand Budapest Hotel | 6 | 0 |
| Alejandro González Iñárritu | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | 5 | 0 |
| Richard Linklater | Boyhood | 5 | 0 |
| Bennett Miller | Foxcatcher | 2 | 0 |
| Morten Tyldum | The Imitation Game | 1 | 0 |
Morten Tyldum's surprise DGA nomination earlier this week turned out to foreshadow an only slightly less surprising Oscar nomination. Equally surprising was the inclusion of Bennett Miller, who has been ignored elsewhere on the awards circuit (though the Academy seemed to like Foxcatcher better than other organizations did, awarding it with five nominations in total, though not one for best picture). Their inclusions meant that Selma's Ava DuVernay (who would have been the first African American woman ever nominated for director), American Sniper's Clint Eastwood, and Whiplash's Damien Chazelle couldn't match their films' best picture nominations with best director nominations. Interestingly, none of the five nominated directors has ever won an Academy Award.
Writing
Original screenplay
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness | The Grand Budapest Hotel | ||
| E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman | Foxcatcher | ||
| Dan Gilroy | Nightcrawler | 1 | 0 |
| Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo |
Birdman | ||
| Richard Linklater | Boyhood | 5 | 0 |
There are no real surprises here. With three nominations today (including for directing and producing a best picture nominee), Richard Linklater more than doubled his previous career total. Wes Anderson and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu also picked up three nominations apiece this morning.
Adapted screenplay
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Paul Thomas Anderson | Inherent Vice | 6 | 0 |
| Damien Chazelle | Whiplash | 1 | 0 |
| Jason Hall | American Sniper | 1 | 0 |
| Anthony McCarten | The Theory of Everything | 1 | 0 |
| Graham Moore | The Imitation Game | 1 | 0 |
It looks like we'll have a first-time Oscar winner in this category—in fact, four of the five contenders are even first-time nominees. The Academy really didn't like Gone Girl much, as Gillian Flynn (who has been owning this category on the awards circuit) couldn't even get a screenplay nomination for adapting her own best-seller. Also omitted was Nick Hornby's script for Wild. Note that most other awards organizations treated Damien Chazelle's Whiplash script as an original screenplay, but the Academy considered it to be an adapted screenplay for reasons known only to the Academy (Chazelle has previously released a single Whiplash scene as a short film to raise funds to complete the full movie, which is apparently the source of the problem).
Acting
Lead actress
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Marion Cotillard | Two Days, One Night | 2 | 1 |
| Felicity Jones | The Theory of Everything | 1 | 0 |
| Julianne Moore | Still Alice | 5 | 0 |
| Rosamund Pike | Gone Girl | 1 | 0 |
| Reese Witherspoon | Wild | 2 | 1 |
After all that recent speculation about Jennifer Aniston sneaking in for the middling new drama Cake, it didn't actually happen. Instead, the five most obvious candidates were indeed the five nominees—though that doesn't make predicting the winner any easier.
Lead actor
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Steve Carell | Foxcatcher | 1 | 0 |
| Bradley Cooper | American Sniper | 3 | 0 |
| Benedict Cumberbatch | The Imitation Game | 1 | 0 |
| Michael Keaton | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | 1 | 0 |
| Eddie Redmayne | The Theory of Everything | 1 | 0 |
Here's another category where we'll have a first-time Oscar winner, though the field didn't shape up quite as planned. Steve Carell had not been getting much traction this awards season, so his inclusion (though not undeserved) is a bit of a surprise. And it probably comes at the expense of Ralph Fiennes, who has been getting plenty of love elsewhere for his turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The biggest snub, however, goes to Jake Gyllenhaal, whose performance in Nightcrawler has already earned him multiple awards over the past month. Right behind him in the snub department is Selma's David Oyelowo, who had received some recognition from other awards groups. Bradley Cooper, one of the relative (though not huge) surprises in their place, is now the first actor since Renée Zellweger in 2003 to score a nomination in three consecutive years.
Supporting actress
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Patricia Arquette | Boyhood | 1 | 0 |
| Laura Dern | Wild | 2 | 0 |
| Keira Knightley | The Imitation Game | 2 | 0 |
| Emma Stone | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | 1 | 0 |
| Meryl Streep | Into the Woods | 19 | 3 |
The Academy has a hard time resisting Meryl Streep, and she's by far the most veteran presence in a field of relative Oscar newcomers (though everyone is a relative Oscar newcomer compared to Streep, who is the most-nominated actor in history). Her inclusion means that there was no room for Rene Russo (Nightcrawler), Tilda Swinton (admittedly a bit of an underdog for Snowpiercer, which doesn't seem like an Academy-friendly film), and Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) to crack the final five.
Supporting actor
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Robert Duvall | The Judge | 7 | 1 |
| Ethan Hawke | Boyhood | 4 | 0 |
| Edward Norton | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | 3 | 0 |
| Mark Ruffalo | Foxcatcher | 2 | 0 |
| J.K. Simmons | Whiplash | 1 | 0 |
Robert Duvall's inclusion for the less-than-stellar drama The Judge is, while not unexpected, the only choice that doesn't match up with awards given out by other groups this year. Missing from the field are the likes of Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice) and Academy favorite Christoph Waltz (Big Eyes).
Other best film nominations
Animated feature
| Metascore / Film / Producers | Watch It | |
|---|---|---|
| Big Hero 6 Don Hall, Chris Williams and Roy Conli | ||
| The Boxtrolls Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight | |
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| How to Train Your Dragon 2 Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold | |
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| Song of the Sea Tomm Moore and Paul Young | ||
| The Tale of the Princess Kaguya Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura | |
|
The LEGO Movie (which did pick up a best original song nomination, though that's not much of a consolation) is the huge omission here, with the relatively unknown Song of the Sea the surprise nominee in its place. LEGO previously had 25 wins this awards season, while Song had just one other nomination.
Documentary feature
| Metascore / Film / Producers | Watch It | |
|---|---|---|
| Citizenfour Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky | ||
| Finding Vivian Maier John Maloof and Charlie Siskel | |
|
| Last Days in Vietnam Rory Kennedy and Keven McAlester | ||
| The Salt of the Earth Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and David Rosier | ||
| Virunga Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara | |
|
Citizenfour has been a favorite on the awards circuit, as has the Roger Ebert doc Life Itself, though the latter was a snub here with the Academy. Note that several acclaimed documentaries, including Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me and Red Army, were left off of the Academy's 15-film shortlist in December (and thus were already known to be out of the running).
Foreign-language feature
| Metascore / Film / Country of Origin | Watch It | |
|---|---|---|
| Ida Poland | |
|
| Leviathan Russia | ||
| Tangerines Estonia | ||
| Timbuktu Mauritania | ||
| Wild Tales Argentina | ||
Sweden's excellent Force Majeure is the huge omission here, as that film has been cleaning up on the awards circuit (along with Ida, which did get nominated). As with the documentary category, the Academy previously released a foreign film shortlist in December, and at that time the omissions of films such as the widely praised Two Days, One Night, Winter Sleep (which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year), and Mommy were considered major snubs.
Short subjects
| Animated Short |
|---|
| 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 |
| Documentary Short |
|---|
| Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry |
| Joanna Aneta Kopacz |
| Our Curse Tomasz Śliwiński and Maciej Ślesicki |
| The Reaper (La Parka) Gabriel Serra Arguello |
| White Earth J. Christian Jensen |
| Live-Action Short |
|---|
| Aya Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis |
| Boogaloo and Graham Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney |
| Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak) Hu Wei and Julien Féret |
| Parvaneh Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger |
| The Phone Call Mat Kirkby and James Lucas |
Music
Original score
| Composer | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Alexandre Desplat | The Grand Budapest Hotel | 8 | 0 |
| Alexandre Desplat | The Imitation Game | 8 | 0 |
| Johann Johannsson | The Theory of Everything | 1 | 0 |
| Gary Yershon | Mr. Turner | 1 | 0 |
| Hans Zimmer | Interstellar | 10 | 1 |
Previous Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross could not pick up another nomination for their Gone Girl score. They were probably the biggest snubs here, with Gary Yershon the most notable surprise among the field of four nominees.
Original song
| Song/Composer | Performer | Film |
|---|---|---|
| "Everything Is Awesome" by Shawn Patterson, Joshua Bartholomew, Lisa Harriton, and The Lonely Island |
Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island |
The LEGO Movie |
| "Glory" by John Legend and Common |
John Legend and Common | Selma |
| "Grateful" by Diane Warren |
Rita Ora | Beyond the Lights |
| "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond |
Glen Campbell | Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me |
| "Lost Stars" by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, and Nick Southwood |
Adam Levine | Begin Again |
Lana Del Rey's "Big Eyes" (from the film of the same name) and Boyhood's "Split the Difference" (written by that film's co-star, Ethan Hawke) are among the omissions, with "Grateful" perhaps the biggest surprise among the nominees.
Technical categories
Cinematography
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Roger Deakins | Unbroken | 12 | 0 |
| Ryszard Lenczewski, Lukasz Zal | Ida | 1 | 0 |
| Emmanuel Lubezki | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | 7 | 1 |
| Dick Pope | Mr. Turner | 2 | 0 |
| Robert D. Yeoman | The Grand Budapest Hotel | 1 | 0 |
Film Editing
| Nominee | Film | Career Oscar Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noms. | Wins | ||
| Joel Cox & Gary Roach | American Sniper | ||
| Sandra Adair | Boyhood | 1 | 0 |
| Barney Pilling | The Grand Budapest Hotel | 1 | 0 |
| William Goldenberg | The Imitation Game | 5 | 1 |
| Tom Cross | Whiplash | 1 | 0 |
Costumes/Makeup
| Costume Design | Makeup and Hairstyling |
|---|---|
| The Grand Budapest Hotel | Foxcatcher |
| Inherent Vice | The Grand Budapest Hotel |
| Into the Woods | Guardians of the Galaxy |
| Maleficent | |
| Mr. Turner |
Sound
Visuals
More Oscar coverage to come
Neil Patrick Harris will host the Oscars for the first time when the 87th Annual Academy Awards ceremony airs live on ABC on Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 7:00p ET / 4:00p PT. Look for additional Oscars coverage on this site over the next month, including a chance for you to predict this year's winners as well as a roundup of Oscar predictions from dozens of critics and industry experts. You can also check out our 2014-15 Film Awards Scorecard for a compilation of this season's movie awards from over 50 different organizations.
What's your take?
What do you think of this year's Academy Award nominations? Let us know in the comments section below.
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