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Two extravagant comedies, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, dominated nominations for the 87th annual Academy Awards with nine nods each, while Boyhood remained the widely acknowledged front-runner.
The three films were nominated for best picture along with five others, comprising more modestly sized movies dwarfed by Hollywood’s stampede of bigger blockbusters. It gave the Oscars a classy if not particularly high-wattage batch of nominees.
The year’s front-runners – Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age epic Boyhood (six nominations) and Alejandro Gonazalez Inarritu’s elegantly shot backstage romp Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – haven’t been dislodged from their lofty perch.
The Grand Budapest, American Sniper and The Imitation Game also came away big winners on Thursday, along with Foxcatcher and The Theory of Everything.

Best Picture Nominees:







“This is what everyone waits for. This is the last one, unless there’s another one that I don’t know about,” said Michael Keaton, who was nominated for best actor for his performance as a washed-up star trying to mount a serious Broadway play in Birdman.
Boyhood won best drama at the Golden Globes, the latest in a string of awards for the unique film, which was 12 years in the making. It landed Linklater nominations for best director and screenplay, as well as supporting nods for Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke.
Second world war thriller The Imitation Game, about code breaker Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), captured eight nominations, including best actor for the lead actor.
The film’s distributor, the Weinstein Company, has previously shepherded prestige British period films (The King’s Speech) all the way to best picture.
“I am knocked for six by this,” said Cumberbatch of his first Oscar nod. “To ring my parents who are both actors and tell them that their only son has been nominated for an Oscar is one of the proudest moments of my life.”
Wes Anderson’s old Europe caper The Grand Budapest Hotel, which also won best comedy or musical at the Globes, has emerged as the most unexpected awards heavyweight.
It managed nine nominations without a single acting nod and was instead repeatedly cited for Anderson’s meticulous craft in directing, production design, make-up and screenplay.





				Best Actor

				Best Actress



				Steve Carrell - Foxcatcher

				Marion Cotillard - Two Days, One Night



				Bradley Cooper - American Sniper

				Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything



				Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game

				Julianne Moore - Still Alice



				Michael Keaton - Birdman

				Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl



				Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

				Reese Witherspoon - Wild



				Best Supporting Actor

				Best Supporting Actress



				Robert Duvall - The Judge

				Patricia Arquette - Boyhood



				Ethan Hawke - Boyhood

				Laura Dern - Wild



				Edward Norton - Birdman

				Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game



				Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher

				Emma Stone - Birdman



				JK Simmons - Whiplash

				Meryl Streep - Into the Woods



Boyhood

Wild

Two Days, One Night

Still Alice


With US$59.1 million at the North American box office (opening all the way back in March), The Grand Budapest Hotel is also the most money-making best-picture entry.
That, however, is likely to change soon after American Sniper expands nationwide this weekend. Clint Eastwood’s Navy SEAL drama, one of the season’s last entries, did especially well, landing six Oscar nods including best actor for Bradley Cooper.
The nominees for best actor aside from Keaton, Cooper and Cumberbatch are Steve Carell (wrestling drama Foxcatcher) and Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything).
Redmayne, the freckled British actor who stars as Hawking in the film, said by phone from Los Angeles that he was woken with the news: “I was in a deep, dark sleep. I was in a dazed state. I was half-undressed and stumbled to the door. I found my manager there brandishing a phone with a lot of screams coming out of it.”
David Oyelowo, who stars as Martin Luther King Jnr in Selma, was surprisingly left out of best actor. Ava DuVernay’s civil rights drama, at one point considered a major contender, faded even after its late debut.





				Best Directing

				Best Cinematography



				Alejandro González Iñarritu - Birdman

				Birdman



				Richard Linklater - Boyhood

				The Grand Budapest Hotel



				Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher

				Ida



				Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

				Mr Turner



				Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

				Unbroken



				Best Original Screenplay

				Best Adapted Screenplay



				Birdman

				American Sniper



				Boyhood

				The Imitation Game



				Foxcatcher

				Inherent Vice



				The Grand Budapest Hotel

				The Theory of Everything



				Nightcrawler

				Whiplash




Selma, which has been nagged by criticism over its portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson, managed just two nominations. (The second was for best song.)
The poor showing of Selma (and on King’s birthday no less) was striking because it followed an Academy Awards led by 12 Years a Slave and much chest-thumping about Hollywood’s thawing close-mindedness.
But Thursday’s nominees, in which all 20 nominated actors are white, was not a diverse bunch. 
Marion Cotillard for the French-language Two Days, One Night was the surprise nominee for best actress. She was joined by Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Reese Witherspoon (Wild).
Those picks left Jennifer Aniston’s pained and grieving performance in Cake on the outside, after all that Oscar buzz.





				Best Orginal Score

				Best Foreign Language Film



The Grand Budapest Hotel


				Ida



				The Imitation Game

				Leviathan



				Interstellar

				Tangerines



				Mr Turner

				Timbuktu



				The Theory of Everything

				Wild Tales



				Best Costumes

				Best Make-Up and Hairstyling



				The Grand Budapest Hotel

				Foxcatcher



				Inherent Vice

				Guardians of the Galaxy



				Into the Woods

				The Grand Budapest Hotel



				Maleficent

				 



				Mr Turner

				 



Ida

Leviathan

Tangerines

Timbuktu

Wild Tales


Big box-office hits were also scarce. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar was restricted to five nominations in technical categories: visual effects, sound mixing, sound editing, score and production design.
Foxcatcher helmer Bennett Miller (previously nominated for Capote) squeaked into best director. Also nominated were Inarritu (Birdman) and Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game).
One of the most notable snubs came in best animation, usually a particularly staid category. Despite critical love and major box office, The Lego Movie failed to join nominees Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Song of the Sea and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.
Lego co-director Phil Lord tweeted a photo of a Lego-built Oscar, writing: “It’s okay. Made my own!”
Some nominees came with the reliability of clockwork. Meryl Streep landed her 19th nomination for her supporting performance as a witch in Disney’s Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods. 
The nominees for best foreign language film are: Ida (Poland), Leviathan (Russia), Tangerines (Estonia), Timbuktu (Mauritania) and Wild Tales (Argentina).
Best documentary nods went to CitizenFour, Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth and Virunga. The last gave Netflix its second Oscar nomination. (It last year released the nominated documentary The Square.)
Left out was the Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will hope this year’s coterie of stars will be enough to maintain the recent upswing in ratings for the Oscars. Last year’s ceremony, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, drew 43 million viewers, making it the most-watched entertainment telecast in a decade.
This year’s show on February 22 will be hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, a veteran of the Tony Awards.


Actor Robert Duvall, star of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, dead at 95

Why Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is the most acclaimed European film of the year

Screenwriter of Oscar-nominated Iranian film arrested in Tehran

Ethan Hawke on his first Oscar nod for best actor. Yes, it only took 40 years

Academy Awards

2015 Oscar nominees revealed: 'Birdman', 'Boyhood', 'Grand Budapest' lead awards nods

Photo: AFP

Animation fans will be disappointed with some Oscar nominations

A still from Japanese director Isao Takahata's Oscar-nominated The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

A still from cartoon superhero movie Big Hero 6, nominated for best animated feature film.

Richard Linklater's coming-of-age film Boyhood is both intimate and epic

Boy's own: Ellar Coltrane played his character for 12 years. Photos: AP, IFC Films

Ellar Coltrane (left) and Ethan Hawke.

Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Ellar Coltrane.

An 18-year-old Coltrane (left) with Richard Linklater.

Coltrane (above and below) at the start of flming.

Coltrane with Patricia Arquette.

US director gives hotel caper his five-star treatment

Wes Anderson on the set of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Photos: AP

Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori 

Tilda Swinton

Bill Murray

Eddie Redmayne dived into science for his role in The Theory of Everything

Redmayne with actor Harry Lloyd, who plays Hawking's university chum.

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones star as the young Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde.

Co-stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones meet Hawking during his visit to the set.

Hawking and Wilde on their wedding day (left), and the screen re-creation (right).

The film, based on Jane Wilde Hawking's memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, is a love story at its core.

Behind a strong cast and crew, Whiplash is no ordinary music drama

Miles Tanner 

Miles Tanner (on drums) and J.K. Simmons play a student and teacher who share a sadomasochistic relationship.