And your 2016 Oscar nominations are…

When it comes to the Hollywood awards season, we’ve already had the ridiculous schadenfreude of the Razzies and the sometimes confusing accolades of the Golden Globes (The Martian is the Best Comedy? Huh?!). But now it’s time to get serious – no, more serious than that! – as the Oscars are upon us!

While the world is still reeling in the fresh shock of the loss of one of cinema’s greats, it was full steam ahead over in Beverley Hills, where the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced their list of nominees for this year’s edition of the most esteemed granddaddy of the movie awards world. And we know the question on all your minds: Was Leonardo DiCaprio nominated for an Oscar?

I almost want to answer that with a “Psshhh. Of course he was, fool!”, because not only was Leo an absolute shoe-in with his incredible performance in The Revenant, but for the most part the nominees read out exactly as expected (often exactly the same as the Golden Globes). I did say “for the most part” though, as Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, was shut out of the Best Picture race despite receiving tons of love from other awards shows. It did however pick up Best Cinematography, Best Original Score for veteran Ennio Morricone and a Best Supporting actress nod for Jennifer Jason Leigh who was predicted to win a golden statue… back when she first burst onto the scene in the 1980’s. Never too late, I guess!

Speaking of veterans getting recognized, Sylvester Stallone doubled down on his Golden Globe accolade by pulling in an Oscar nod as well for Best Supporting Actor for Creed. One name that wasn’t in the mix for the Globes though was Tom Hardy, who picks up a Best Supporting Actor nomination here for his villainous turn in The Revenant. That is only one of the 12 – yes, TWELVE – nominations that director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s grueling masterpiece picked up, the most of any film on the list.

And as fans had predicted and hoped, it was another Tom Hardy vehicle that was The Revenant‘s biggest rival as Mad Max: Fury Road picked up 10 nominations of it’s own. This includes Best Picture, Best Director for 70-year old George Miller and Best Cinematography as well as a slew of technical nominations of which it is certainly a favourite to take them.

And staying with those technical categories, we can now say that besides for shattering box office records all over the place, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now officially a 5-time Oscar nominee, finding its name in the categories for Best Original Score for John Williams, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. Of all of those, I would say Best Visual Effects and Sound Mixing/Editing are it’s strongest chances.

As for snubs, there was really only one other high profile “WTF?!” besides for The Hateful Eight lack of Best Picture nomination, as Ridley Scott’s name was nowhere to be found in the Best Director category for The Martian. The fact that he wasn’t nominated when he was a betting favourite to actually win it, is kind of strange.

Also, I expect social media to pick up on this quickly and start the hashtags flying around, but once again there was a pronounced lack of diversity in the nominees list. The exclusion of Selma director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo drew the ire of hordes of publications last year, and this year the arguments could definitely be made for Creed‘s Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, or maybe the young cast from Straight Outta Compton (it’s only nomination is for it’s white screenwriters) to have been included in the conversation. There’s also Beasts of No Nation, which boasts both an incredible performance from Idris Elba and is directed by Asian-American Cary Fukogawa, but no, once again #OscarsSoWhite. Sigh.

Here’s the full list of nominations:

• Best Picture

The Big Short – Producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner
Bridge of Spies – Producers Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger
Brooklyn – Producers Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey
Mad Max: Fury Road –  Producers Doug Mitchell and George Miller
The Martian – Producers Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam
The Revenant – Producers Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon
Room – Producer Ed Guiney
Spotlight – ProducersMichael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust

• Best Actor

Bryan Cranston – Trumbo
Matt Damon – The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
Micheal Fassbender – Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl

• Best Actress

Cate Blanchett – Carol
Brie Larson – Room
Jennifer Lawrence – Joy
Charlotte Rampling- 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn

• Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale – The Big Short
Tom Hardy – The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight
Mark Rylance – Bridge Of Spies
Sylvester Stallone – Creed

• Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara – Carol
Rachel McAdams – Spotlight
Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs

• Best Director

Adam McKay – The Big Short
George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro G. Iñárritu – The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson – Room
Tom McCarthy – Spotlight

• Best Film Editing

The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

• Best Foreign Language Film

Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia)
Mustang (France)
Son of Saul (Hungary)
Theeb (Jordan)
A War (Denmark)

• Best Original Score

Bridge of Spies – Thomas Newman
Carol – Carter Burwell
The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone
Sicario – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – John Williams

• Best Production Design

Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant

• Best Visual Effects

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

• Best Adapted Screenplay

The Big Short – Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn – Nick Hornby
Carol – Phyllis Nagy
Martian – Drew Goddard
Room – Emma Donoghue

• Best Original Screenplay

Bridge Of Spies – Matt Charman, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen
Ex Machina – Alex Garland
Inside Out – Pete Docter, Megg LeFauve, and Josh Cooley
Spotlight – Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Straight Outta Compton – Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff

• Best Animated Feature Film

Anomalisa
Boy And The World
Inside Out
Shaun The Sheep Movie
When Marnie Was There

• Best Cinematography

Carol – Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight – Robert Richardson
Mad Mad: Fury Road – John Seale
The Revenant – Emmanuel Lubezki
Sicario – Roger Deakins

• Best Costume Design

Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant

• Best Documentary Feature

Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone
Winter On Fire: Ukraine

• Best Documentary Short Subject

Body Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Last Day of Freedom

• Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Mad Max: Fury Road
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared
The Revenant

• Best Original Song

50 Shades Of Gray – “Earned It”, Music and Lyrics by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio
Racing Extinction – “Manta Ray”, Music by J. Ralph; Lyrics by Antony Hegarty
Youth – “Simple Song #3”, Music and Lyrics by David Lang
The Hunting Ground – “Til It Happens To You”, Music and Lyrics by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga
Spectre – “Writing’s On the Wall”, Music and Lyrics by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

• Best Animated Short Film

Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow

• Best Live Action Short Film

Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be OK
Shock
Sutter

• Best Sound Editing

Mad Max
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

• Best Sound Mixing

Bridge Of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The full ceremony for the 88th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, with comedian Chris Rock returning to host for a second time.

Last Updated: January 14, 2016