Oscars 2015: nominees, surprises and snubs

The nominees for the 87th Academy Awards have been announced, and boy, are there a few surprises this year.

The Oscars, being the most prestigious award in film, always arrives the latest during the awards show season. And by then, we have a pretty good idea of who will be getting an Oscar nod and possibly even taking home that coveted gold statuette.

But this year’s Academy Awards still managed to surprise us, churning up a handful of surprise nominations and snubbing those that made it to the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. In fact, the SAG is often regarded as the most accurate predictor for Academy Award nominees and winners, but the Academy decided to deviate a little this year.

For one, Bradley Cooper received a Best Actor nomination for his role in American Sniper, in place of Jake Gyllenhaal, who received SAG and Golden Globes nods (Cooper did not) for his work in Nightcrawler but failed to make the cut at the Oscars. The same thing happened in the Best Actress category, where French actress Marion Cotillard snagged a surprise Best Actress nomination for Two Days, One Night, swapping places with Jennifer Aniston, who was a SAG and Golden Globe nominee for Cake.

Other than that, this year’s Oscar nominees are by and large the same ones that have been celebrated at all the other awards shows. The British Invasion continues with The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game snagging up multiple nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch, and Best Actress for Felicity Jones and Keira Knightley. 26-year-old Emma Stone receives her first Oscar nomination, while film composer Alexandre Desplat stands a 2/5 chance of winning Best Original Score with his nominations for both The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game.

Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel lead the pack with 9 nominations each, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Here are some of the nominees:

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
AMERICAN SNIPER
Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan, Producers
BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole, Producers
BOYHOOD
Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland, Producers
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, Producers
THE IMITATION GAME
Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman, Producers
SELMA
Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten, Producers
WHIPLASH
Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook and David Lancaster, Producers

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
STEVE CARELL - FOXCATCHER
BRADLEY COOPER - AMERICAN SNIPER
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH - THE IMITATION GAME
MICHAEL KEATON - BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
EDDIE REDMAYNE - THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
MARION COTILLARD - TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT
FELICITY JONES - THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
JULIANNE MOORE - STILL ALICE
ROSAMUND PIKE - GONE GIRL
REESE WITHERSPOON - WILD

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
ROBERT DUVALL - THE JUDGE
ETHAN HAWKE - BOYHOOD
EDWARD NORTON - BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
MARK RUFFALO - FOXCATCHER
J.K. SIMMONS - WHIPLASH

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
PATRICIA ARQUETTE - BOYHOOD
LAURA DERN - WILD
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY - THE IMITATION GAME
EMMA STONE - BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
MERYL STREEP - INTO THE WOODS

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU - BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
RICHARD LINKLATER - BOYHOOD
BENNETT MILLER - FOXCATCHER
WES ANDERSON - THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
MORTEN TYLDUM - THE IMITATION GAME

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR
BIG HERO 6
Don Hall, Chris Williams And Roy Conli
THE BOXTROLLS
Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2
Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
SONG OF THE SEA
Tomm Moore and Paul Young
THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA
Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (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

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME - THE LEGO MOVIE
Music and lyric by Shawn Patterson
GLORY - SELMA
Music and lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
GRATEFUL - BEYOND THE LIGHTS
Music and lyric by Diane Warren
I’M NOT GONNA MISS YOU - GLEN CAMPBELL…I’LL BE ME
Music and lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
LOST STARS- BEGIN AGAIN
Music and lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

View the full list of nominees here.

The 87th Academy Awards will be presented live at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on February 22, 2015.