Alejandro G. Iñárritu beat the odds last year when Birdman became the first film to win Best Picture without at least being nominated for its film editing since 1980’s Ordinary People. Now, with 12 nominations for The Revenant — the most of any film released last year — Iñárritu may be poised to do something similarly rare, by becoming the first director to win back-to-back awards for his directing since Joseph L. Mankiewicz won for 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives and 1950’s All About Eve.
Then again, maybe he won’t.
For one thing, The Revenant failed to get a nod for its screenplay, and only one film — Titanic (which, like The Revenant, starred Leonardo DiCaprio) — has won Best Picture in the last 50 years without at least being nominated for its script.
Plus, The Revenant failed to get nominated for the Screen Actors Guild ensemble award last month, and only one film in the 20-year history of that award has won the Oscar for Best Picture without a SAG ensemble nomination, i.e. Braveheart.
So if we ignore the number of nominations, which films have been nominated for all the key indicators (the SAG ensemble award plus Oscar nods for film editing, directing and screenplay)? Only two: Spotlight, which has six Oscar nominations overall, and The Big Short, which has five. So the odds may favour one of those films.
Or there could be a split. Maybe Iñárritu will win best director for the virtuosity of his filmmaking, while Spotlight — a film that is widely admired but has been criticized by some for its supposedly flat direction — will win best picture. Who knows.
In any case, here are a few other points that jump out at me.
Iñárritu has maintained his unbroken streak, going back to 2000’s Amores Perros, of getting at least one Oscar nomination for every single feature film he has made.
Mad Max: Fury Road has ten nominations, including best picture and best director, for George Miller. When was the last time a pure action film such as this got so many Oscar nods? Raiders of the Lost Ark, maybe? (Raiders was nominated in eight competitive categories and was also given a special achievement award.)
Miller’s films have been nominated for a few things in the past — he even won best animated feature for 2006’s Happy Feet — but Mad Max: Fury Road is the first entry in the Mad Max series to get any love from the Academy in any category.
The Best Picture nomination for Mad Max: Fury Road also marks the first time that the fourth movie in a franchise has ever been considered for this award — and it marks the second time, following 2010’s Toy Story 3, that a sequel has been up for this award without any of its predecessors being nominated for it.
Tom Hardy stars or co-stars in both of the two most-nominated movies.
The Force Awakens marks the triumphant return of Star Wars to the visual effects category, at least as far as nominations go. It wasn’t even nominated in this category for Revenge of the Sith, and the other two prequels were nominated but lost to The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The original trilogy came out before the visual effects category even existed, so they had to invent special achievement awards for the effects in those films. Could The Force Awakens be the first Star Wars film to win in a competitive best visual effects showdown?
I’m really happy with the animation category this year. Only one of the nominees is an American computer-generated kids’ movie, and it’s a good one (i.e. Inside Out). Anomalisa (the first-ever R-rated nominee in this category) and Shaun the Sheep Movie (British) are both stop-motion, and Boy and the World (Brazil) and When Marnie Was There (Japan) are traditional hand-drawn animation.
The nod for Creed marks Sylvester Stallone’s second nomination for playing Rocky Balboa, following the original 1976 film. As Scott Feinberg notes, the 39 years between those two nominations sets a new record for the longest gap between nominations for playing the same character, beating the 25 years between Paul Newman’s portrayals of “Fast Eddie” Felson in 1961’s The Hustler and 1986’s The Color of Money.
Two issue-oriented documentaries — The Hunting Ground and Racing Extinction — were nominated for best original song but not for best documentary feature.
Come to think of it, none of the song nominees were nominated for anything else.
Here are the feature films that have been nominated for Oscars, from those with the most nods to those with only one. The titles of those I have seen are in bold:
12 nominations
- The Revenant — Picture, director (Alejandro G. Inarritu), cinematography, actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), supporting actor (Tom Hardy), production design, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, film editing, visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing
10 nominations
- Mad Max: Fury Road — Picture, director (George Miller), cinematography, production design, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, film editing, visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing
7 nominations
- The Martian — Picture, adapted screenplay, actor (Matt Damon), production design, visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing
6 nominations
- Bridge of Spies — Picture, supporting actor (Mark Rylance), production design, original screenplay, original score, sound mixing
- Carol — Adapted screenplay, cinematography, actress (Cate Blanchett), supporting actress (Rooney Mara), costume design, original score
- Spotlight — Picture, director (Tom McCarthy), supporting actor (Mark Ruffalo), supporting actress (Rachel McAdams), original screenplay, film editing
5 nominations
- The Big Short — Picture, director (Adam McKay), supporting actor (Christian Bale), adapted screenplay, film editing
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Film editing, visual effects, original score, sound editing, sound mixing
4 nominations
- The Danish Girl — Actor (Eddie Redmayne), supporting actress (Alicia Vikander), production design, costume design
- Room — Picture, director (Lenny Abrahamson), adapted screenplay, actress (Brie Larson)
3 nominations
- Brooklyn — Picture, adapted screenplay, actress (Saoirse Ronan)
- The Hateful Eight — Cinematography, supporting actress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), original score
- Sicario — Cinematography, original score, sound editing
2 nominations
- Ex Machina — Original screenplay, visual effects
- Inside Out — Animated feature, original screenplay
- Steve Jobs — Actor (Michael Fassbender), supporting actress (Kate Winslet)
1 nominations
- Amy — Documentary feature
- Anomalisa — Animated feature
- Boy and the World — Animated feature
- Cartel Land — Documentary feature
- Cinderella — Costume design
- Creed — Supporting actor (Sylvester Stallone)
- Embrace of the Serpent — Foreign language film
- Fifty Shades of Grey — Original song
- 45 Years — Actress (Charlotte Rampling)
- The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared — Makeup and hairstyling
- The Hunting Ground — Original song
- Joy — Actress (Jennifer Lawrence)
- The Look of Silence — Documentary feature
- Mustang — Foreign language film
- Racing Extinction — Original song
- Shaun the Sheep Movie — Animated feature
- Son of Saul — Foreign language film
- SPECTRE — Original song
- Straight Outta Compton — Original screenplay
- Theeb — Foreign language film
- Trumbo — Actor (Bryan Cranston)
- A War — Foreign language film
- What Happened, Miss Simone? — Documentary feature
- When Marnie Was There — Animated feature
- Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom — Documentary feature
- Youth — Original song
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