2014 Oscar Nominations Announced; Find out More About the Happy and the Snubbed

The nominations for the 2014 Academy Awards were announced yesterday and, as usual, there were several surprises and snubs. First of all, the major contenders this year are "American Hustle" and "Gravity", each with 10 nominations, followed by "12 Years a Slave" with 9 nods. The race will be extremely close, and as the Golden Globes have proven, every movie will get its fair share, but there won't be any one winner to sweep all categories. More comments and the full list of nominations after the jump.

Since most of the nominees are in line with this year's awards expectations, I'll just skip ahead to what's different from what everyone predicted. One of the bigger surprises is that "Dallas Buyers Club" received 6 nominations, more than anyone predicted, including for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Leading and Supporting Actor for Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, respectively. Another big surprise was that "Inside Llewyn Davis" and "Saving Mr. Banks" were almost completely shut out of the Oscars. Particularly in the case of Ethan and Joel Coen's film, it was shocking, but not entirely unexpected after all the Guilds decided to ignore it. The film failed to even receiva a nod for the Coen brothers' original screenplay.

Spike Jonze's "Her" received five nominations, including Best Picture. While Jonze himself was snubbed, he did get nominated for Best Original Script. Another film that fared surprisingly well with Academy voters is Steven Frears' "Philomena". The true story adaptation starring Judi Dench nabbed four nominations, including a surprising one for Best Picture. The film gained some attention with its battle to appeal the MPAA's decision to rate the film R because of a couple of F-bombs. Eventually, the film was rated PG-13.

Tom Hanks and Robert Redford did not get nominated for Best Leading Actor, and in Hanks' case it's surprising considering that most of the awards organizations have nominated him for his highly praised performance in "Captain Phillips". Redford on the other hand, was always a shaky deal since the film wasn't quite as visible as the others. It's also worth mentioning that "Captain Phillips" director Paul Greengrass did not get nominated, either, despite being considered a sure bet.

Leonardo DiCaprio earned a nomination for "The Wolf of Wall Street" and the picture also got nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay and, another surprsie, Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill). This is Hill's second nomination in the category. His first was for "Moneyball". For Scorsese, this is his eight nomination and he won an Oscar for his work on "The Departed".

Christian Bale was nominated for Best Actor in "American Hustle". This is most likely due to the huge amount of love that the Academy seems to have poured into this movie. Just like in the case of director David O'Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook", last year, the entire cast of "American Hustle" was nominated. This includes Bale, Bradley Cooper (Supporting Actor), Amy Adams (Leading Actress) and Jennifer Lawrence (Supporting Actress).

In the Best Leading Actress category, the biggest surprise is the abscence of Emma Thompson, whose performance in "Saving Mr. Banks" was considered worthy of the Academy's attention. This is due to the fact that the film was largely ignored at the Oscars, apart for a nomination for Best Original Score received by composer Thomas Newman ("Skyfall", "American Beauty").

The Best Supporting Actress award holds not one, but two surprises. The first is the inclusion of Sally Hawkins whose performance in Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" charmed the Academy voters. The second surprise is the nomination of 84-year-old June Squibb for Alexander Payne's "Nebraska". This is her first nomination. Oprah Winfrey was considered a solid contender for the Supporting Actress award thanks to her performance in "The Butler", but she eventually got snubbed. In fact, Lee Daniels's "The Butler" was entirely shut out from the Oscars, despite some optimistic predictions. In the Supporting Actor category, the only surprise is that Daniel Bruhl missed a nomination for his performance in Ron Howard's F1 drama "Rush".

Some major surprises are also present in the music categories. The first would be that Lana Del Rey's song "Young and Beautiful" from "The Great Gatsby" was not nominated. What is even more surprising is that one of the songs that was nominated is "Alone Yet Not Alone", sung by Joni Eareckson Tada and composed by Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel. While not exactly a bad song (listen below), it's certainly surprising that it was nominated considering that the movie it belongs to, titled "Alone Yet Not Alone", is one of the most obscure movies to ever be nominated for an Oscar. The film is a historical drama based on real events and although it received a limited release in April 2013, the film has no reviews on either Rottentomatoes.com and Metacritic.com, and it has an IMDb.com score of 5.0 from 41 users.



Hans Zimmer's score for "12 Years a Slave" missed the Oscar nomination which would have helped the movie tie the award count with "American Hustle" and "Gravity". Another snub was Alex Ebert's music for "All is Lost". Ebert won the Golden Globe for his composition.

Kar Wai Wong's foreign martial arts drama "The Grandmaster" earned two nominations for Cinematography and Costume Design.

In the technical categories there isn't any major upset. The visual effects category offered some surprises, though, as "The Lone Ranger" earned a nod for Best Visual Effects, while "Pacific Rim" was left out. An unexpected nomination was that of "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" for Best Make-Up.

The 86th Annual Academy Awards will be broadcast March 2nd on ABC.

BEST PICTURE
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST DIRECTOR
David O. Russell - American Hustle
Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
Alexander Payne - Nebraska
Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave
Martin Scorsese - The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale - American Hustle
Bruce Dern - Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club

BEST ACTRESS
Amy Adams - American Hustle
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock - Gravity
Judi Dench - Philomena
Meryl Streep - August: Osage County

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper – American Hustle
Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave
Jonah Hill - The Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’O - 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts - August: Osage County
June Squibb - Nebraska

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell - American Hustle
Woody Allen - Blue Jasmine
Craig Borton, Melissa Warlick – Dallas Buyers Club
Spike Jonze – Her
Bob Nelson – Nebraska

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke - Before Midnight
Billy Ray – Captain Phillips
Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope - Philomena
John Ridley - 12 Years a Slave
Terence Winter - The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Broken Circle Breakdown
The Great Beauty
The Hunt
The Missing Picture
Omar

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest & Celestine
Frozen
The Wind Rises

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Act of Killing
Cutie and the Boxer
Dirty Wars
The Square
20 Feet from Stardom

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
CaveDigger
Facing Fear
Karama Has No Walls
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Jack Hall

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
American Hustle
Gravity
The Great Gatsby
Her
12 Years a Slave

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Philippe Le Sound - The Grandmaster
Emmanuel Lubezki - Gravity
Bruno Delbonnel - Inside Llewyn Davis
Phedon Papamichael - Nebraska
Roger Deakins - Prisoners

BEST FILM EDITING
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
12 Years a Slave

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
John Williams - The Book Thief
Steven Price – Gravity
frozen-poster-1William Butler and Owen Pallett – Her
Alexandre Desplat – Philomena
Thomas Newman – Saving Mr. Banks

BEST ORIGINAL SONG “Alone, Yet Not Alone” – Alone, Yet Not Alone
“Happy” – Despicable Me 2
“Let It Go” – Frozen
“The Moon Song” – Her
“Ordinary Love” – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3
The Lone Ranger
Star Trek Into Darkness

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
American Hustle
The Grandmaster
The Great Gatsby
The Invisible Woman
12 Years a Slave

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Dallas Buyers Club
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
The Lone Ranger

BEST SOUND EDITING
All Is Lost
Captain Phillips
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor

BEST SOUND MIXING
Captain Phillips
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Inside Llewyn Davis
Lone Survivor

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
Feral
Get a Horse!
Mr. Hublot
Possessions
Room on the Broom

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE-ACTION)
Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)
Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything)
Helium
Pitakko Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)
The Voorman Problem

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