The Oscars Fever is on Once Again and the List of Nominees is Out

On the second of March, the winners of this year’s Oscars will be known. The list of nominees has been released, announced by Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Chris Hemsworth, the star of the Thor movie series.

The announcement was made on Thursday morning and according to insiders, the surprises and the snubs for this year’s Oscars are quite glaring. As expected, Gravity and American Hustle were on top of the list, each one receiving 10 nominations including Best Picture and Best Direction. In close second, with nine nomination is 12 Years a Slave, a British-American film directed by British film director Steven Rodney McQueen. They were not even surprised that the film Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coen Brothers did not make, it as it was released quite late and there were so many other films that came before it that were touted to be potential winners.

Some of the nominations

Meryl Streep’s nomination for best actress in a leading role in August: Osage Country is her 18th nomination. Dame Judi Dench is nominated as well for Best Actress for Philomena, while Cate Blanchett is nominated in the same category for her role in Blue Jasmine.

Days before Matthew McConaughey won the best actor award in the Golden Globe for Dallas Buyers Club. He is nominated once again for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the same film in the Oscars. Jared Leto is nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting role for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. Like McConaughey, Leto has just received a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyers Club. This will be his first Oscar nomination in any category. Dallas Buyers Club is also a contender for this year’s Best Picture Award.

Top contenders

This year there are nine films that will vie for the coveted Best Picture trophy. American Hustle and 12 Years a Slave top the list that includes Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Philomena, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, The Wolf of Wall Street and Her.

For Best Actor in a Leading Role, aside from Matthew McConaughey, are Christian Bale (American Hustle), Chiwetel Ajiofor (12 Years a Slave), Bruce Dern (Nebraska) and Leonardo diCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street). In the Best Actress in a Leading Role category, the contenders are Amy Adams (American Hustle), Judi Dench (Philomena), Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Meryl Streep (August: Osage Country) and Sandra Bullock (Gravity).

In the male supporting role category, Jared Leto will be pitting against Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) and Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave). It is the first acting stint for Barkhad Abdi who works as a limo driver in Minnesota. 12 Years a Slave was the Best Picture (Drama) winner in the 2014 Golden Globe. For the supporting actress category, Golden Globe winner Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle) is also nominated, along with Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine), Julia Roberts (August: Osage County), Jun Squibb (Nebraska) and Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave. One of the sleepers in the list could be June Squibb, who is already 84 years of age. After playing bit parts in movies and a career that is mostly spent on TV shows, she delivered quite a performance as the sniping martyr wife of Bruce Dern’s character in Nebraska.

The list of newcomers that are`nominated is quite short. While the other nominations came as no surprise, it is still anyone’s guess who will be holding the Oscar trophy later.

Photo credit: Taken by Alan Light under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.