'The Revenant' leads Oscars nominations with 12, 'Mad Max' nabs 10
Posted Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 7:14 AM Central
Last updated Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 11:18 AM Central
by John Couture
If Leonardo DiCaprio is ever going to win an Oscar, this looks to be his year. Led by Leo's nomination for Best Actor, The Revenant snagged the most Oscar nominations with an even dozen. In a move that seems somewhat counterintuitive to traditional thinking inside the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, heavy action film Mad Max: Fury Road finished second with 10 nominations.
After expanding to a wide release, The Revenant earned an impressive $39.8 million last weekend, good enough for a second-place finish behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Revenant continued its good fortune on Sunday night when it took home the most Golden Globes and it would appear that the true story about the hard life on the American frontier is peaking at the right time.
The other big winner at the Golden Globes, The Martian, brought home a respectable seven nominations including Best Actor for Matt Damon and Best Picture, but failed to score a Best Director nod for Ridley Scott. Best Screenplay Golden Globe-winner Aaron Sorkin also failed to score in one of the oddest snubs of the morning.
At first blush, you would tend to give the edge to Leo in the Best Actor race. Just look at the stats. Since 1951, when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association split its Best Actor Golden Globe into two categories, the Best Actor, Comedy or Musical Golden Globe winner has been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar 34 times. Of those nominations, they competed for the Best Actor Oscar directly with the winner of the Best Actor, Drama Golden Globe 32 times.
In those 32 meetings, the Best Actor, Drama Golden Globe winner sports an impressive 21-5-5 record, with the one race to be determined in a few weeks. Those five "ties" represent times in which neither the Golden Globe winner won the Oscar.
Of course, there's always a "but," right? Of the five times that the Comedy or Musical Golden Globe winner has "upset" the Drama winner, one of those occurences was in 2004 when Comedy or Musical winner Jamie Foxx (Ray) beat out Drama winner Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator).
So, yeah, Leo is 0 for 1 in this situation. Yes, I'm saying that Matt Damon has a chance.
One other potential controversy is the lack of diversity in the acting nominations and top awards overall. Despite positive critical praise and awards buzz for both Creed and Straight Outta Compton, the only nominations that either film received were Best Supporting Actor for Sylvester Stallone in Creed and Best Original Screenplay for Straight Outta Compton.
Chris Rock is back to host the Oscars this year and I'm sure that he will address the lack of diversity a few times before the night is over. Personally, I haven't seen all of the films so I can't say whether the Academy got the nominations "right," but it seems a bit odd that we aren't seeing more diversity in the nominations that reflects the growing diversity in the roles themselves.
The Oscars will be handed out on February 28 and once again Tim and I will be live-tweeting the festivities on Twitter.
Here are all the nominees as presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. You can watch a replay of the live nomination event below.
Nominations for the 88th Academy Awards
Best Picture
Actor In A Leading Role
- Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
- Matt Damon, The Martian
- Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
- Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
- Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Actress In A Leading Role
- Cate Blanchett, Carol
- Brie Larson, Room
- Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
- Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
- Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Actor In A Supporting Role
- Christian Bale, The Big Short
- Tom Hardy, The Revenant
- Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
- Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
- Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Actress In A Supporting Role
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
- Rooney Mara, Carol
- Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
- Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
- Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
Directing
- Adam McKay, The Big Short
- George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
- Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant
- Lenny Abrahamson, Room
- Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Original Screenplay
- Matt Charman, Ethan Coen, and Joel Coen, Bridge of Spies
- Alex Garland, Ex Machina
- Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen, Meg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley, Inside Out
- Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
- S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus, Andrea Berloff, and Jonathan Herman, Straight Outta Compton
Adapted Screenplay
- Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, The Big Short
- Nick Hornby, Brooklyn
- Phyllis Nagy, Carol
- Drew Goddard, The Martian
- Emma Donoghue, Room
Animated Feature Film
Art Direction
Cinematography
- Ed Lachman, Carol
- Robert Richardson, The Hateful Eight
- Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant
- Roger Deakins, Sicario
- John Seale, Mad Max: Fury Road
Costume Design
- Sandy Powell, Carol
- Sandy Powell, Cinderella
- Paco Delgado, The Danish Girl
- Jenny Beavan, Mad Max: Fury Road
- Jacqueline West, The Revenant
Documentary Feature
Documentary Short Subject
- Body Team 12
- Chau, Beyond the Lines
- Claude Lanzman: Spectres of the Shoah
- A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
- Last Day of Freedom
Film Editing
- Hank Corwin, The Big Short
- Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road
- Stephen Mirrione, The Revenant
- Tom McArdle, Spotlight
- Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Foreign Language Film
- (Colombia), Embrace of the Serpent
- (France), Mustang
- (Hungary), Son of Saul
- (Jordan), Theeb
- (Denmark), A War
Makeup
Music (Original Score)
- Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies
- Carter Burwell, Carol
- Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
- Johan Johannson, Sicario
- John Williams, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Music (Original Song)
- 'Earned It', Fifty Shades of Grey
- 'Racing Extinction', Racing Extinction
- 'Simple Song #3', Youth
- 'Til It Happens to You', The Hunting Ground
- 'Writing's on the Wall', Spectre
Short Film (Animated)
- Bear Story
- Prologue
- Sanjay's Super Team
- We Can't Live Without Cosmos
- World of Tomorrow
Short Film (Live Action)
- Ave Maria
- Day One
- Everythign Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
- Shok
- Stutterer