While many Oscar hopefuls were celebrating on Thursday morning as this year’s nominations were announced, other likely contenders were shockingly left out.
Although The Martian earned a number of nominations, including best picture and best actor (Matt Damon), its director Ridley Scott was shockingly left out of the best director category.
Damon had been campaigning aggressively for Scott, who’d never won a best director Oscar, to win the award this year but he wasn’t even nominated. Steven Spielberg was also left out of the best director nominees although his film, Bridge of Spies, was nominated in other categories.
Aaron Sorkin
While the high-profile Steve Jobs film got nominations for stars Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet, its screenplay, by Aaron Sorkin, wasn’t nominated in the best adapted screenplay category despite the film being considered as a frontrunner. Sorkin also won the Golden Globe for best screenplay on Sunday.
The Hateful Eight was also a surprising omission in a number of categories, including best picture, best director (Quentin Tarantino) and adapted screenplay. But, the film was nominated for a number of other awards.
Other snubs in the categories of best picture and director included Carol, Straight Outta Compton, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Sicario — all of which were considered likely nominees. Many of those films, however, did get other nominations, and The Force Awakens and Sicario were well represented in the technical categories.
Another shocking omission came in the category of best original song when frontrunners and Paul Walker tribute “See You Again,” from Furious 7, failed to land a nomination.
For the second year in a row, the Academy’s voters selected all white actors in the acting categories, leaving out diverse, deserving hopefuls Benicio del Toro and Idris Elba (considered likely supporting actor nominees) as well as Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan (considered likely best actor nominees). Other notable acting snubs included Jacob Tremblay (left out of best actor for his role in Room), Michael Shannon (no best supporting actor nomination for his work in 99 Homes) and Helen Mirren, who didn’t score either a best actress nomination forWoman in Gold nor a best supporting actress nomination for Trumbo.
Also Beasts of No Nation and Concussion, considered likely nominees in a few categories, were completely shut out.
