Revenant, Mad Max and Martian lead a strong British year for Oscar nominations

The Revenant won 3 of the most prestigious Golden Globes to put it on pole position for the Oscars
The Revenant leads the field with 12 Oscar nominations

The Revenant has followed its Golden Globes success by picking up twelve Academy Award nominations, including in most of the main categories – Best Picture, Best Director for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy for Best Supporting Actor – and in many of the craft contests, including Emmanuel Lubezki in the race for Best Cinematography.

After Birdman led the charge at last year’s Oscars, it’s the second year in a row that a film by Iñárritu will dominate Oscar night.

Up for ten awards, the second most nominated film is Mad Mad: Fury Road is mostly recognised in the craft categories. But its director George Miller secured a highly coveted spot on the Best Director shortlist at the expense of two of the Awards Season favourites, Sir Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg, whose The Martian and Bridge of Spies picked up seven and six nominations respectively.

Another film featuring in six categories is the journalistic expose Spotlight, which sees Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams nominated in the supporting categories, but nothing for last year’s Birdman nominee, Michael Keaton.

The biggest box office success of the year, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will have a presence in Hollywood on Oscars night next month, courtesy of its five nominations, all in the technical categories.

Kate Winslet and Michael Fassbender are Oscar-nominated for Steve Jobs
Kate Winslet and Michael Fassbender are Oscar-nominated for Steve Jobs

The list looks decidedly different from many of the others this year, with Carol, seen as an Awards Season front-runner and the equal most-nominated film by BAFTA, missing out on a Best Picture nomination, in a field of eight. Its director, Todd Haynes, was personally snubbed, despite securing nominations at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes, although the stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are up for awards. And the man who picked up the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay for Steve Jobs last Sunday, Aaron Sorkin, was overlooked by the Academy this time. The stars of his film, Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet each collected another nomination.

Among other British nominees, like Iñárritu, Eddie Redmayne will be trying to make it two in a row by following-up last year’s Best Actor for The Theory of Everything with another for The Danish Girl and three of the five Best Supporting Actor nominees are from Britain, with Christian Bale (The Big Short) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) joining The Revenant’s Tom Hardy. One of the actresses most surprisingly overlooked by BAFTA, Charlotte Rampling, picks up a Best Actress nomination for 45 Years. And Asif Kapadia’s Amy is on the short-list for Best Documentary Feature.

Boasting that more than forty nominees – about a third of the total – were either for British talent or films with British input, the BFI’s Chief Executive Amanda Nevill said she was over the moon, particularly for the four nominations between them for two films supported by the BFI Film Fund, Brooklyn and 45 Years.

The full list of nominees for the 88th Academy Awards are:

Best motion picture of the year

  • The Big Short Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
  • Bridge of Spies Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
  • Brooklyn Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Doug Mitchell and George Miller, Producers
  • The Martian Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam, Producers
  • The Revenant Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon, Producers
  • Room Ed Guiney, Producer
  • Spotlight Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Performance by an actor in a leading role

  • Bryan Cranston in “Trumbo”
  • Matt Damon in “The Martian”
  • Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant”
  • Michael Fassbender in “Steve Jobs”
  • Eddie Redmayne in “The Danish Girl”

Performance by an actress in a leading role

  • Cate Blanchett in “Carol”
  • Brie Larson in “Room”
  • Jennifer Lawrence in “Joy”
  • Charlotte Rampling in “45 Years”
  • Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

  • Christian Bale in “The Big Short”
  • Tom Hardy in “The Revenant”
  • Mark Ruffalo in “Spotlight”
  • Mark Rylance in “Bridge of Spies”
  • Sylvester Stallone in “Creed”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

  • Jennifer Jason Leigh in “The Hateful Eight”
  • Rooney Mara in “Carol”
  • Rachel McAdams in “Spotlight”
  • Alicia Vikander in “The Danish Girl”
  • Kate Winslet in “Steve Jobs”

Achievement in directing

  • “The Big Short” Adam McKay
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” George Miller
  • “The Revenant” Alejandro G. Iñárritu
  • RoomLenny Abrahamson
  • “Spotlight” Tom McCarthy

Adapted screenplay

  • “The Big Short” Screenplay by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
  • “Brooklyn” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
  • “Carol” Screenplay by Phyllis Nagy
  • “The Martian” Screenplay by Drew Goddard
  • Room Screenplay by Emma Donoghue

Original screenplay

  • “Bridge of Spies” Written by Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
  • “Ex Machina” Written by Alex Garland
  • “Inside Out” Screenplay by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
  • “Spotlight” Written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy
  • “Straight Outta Compton” Screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

Best animated feature film of the year

  • “Anomalisa” Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
  • “Boy and the World” Alê Abreu
  • “Inside Out” Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera
  • “Shaun the Sheep Movie” Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
  • “When Marnie Was There” Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura

Achievement in cinematography

  • “Carol” Ed Lachman
  • “The Hateful Eight” Robert Richardson
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” John Seale
  • “The Revenant” Emmanuel Lubezki
  • “Sicario” Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design

  • “Carol” Sandy Powell
  • “Cinderella” Sandy Powell
  • “The Danish Girl” Paco Delgado
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Jenny Beavan
  • “The Revenant” Jacqueline West

Best documentary feature

  • “Amy” Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees
  • “Cartel Land” Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
  • “The Look of Silence” Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
  • “What Happened, Miss Simone?” Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
  • “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor

Best documentary short subject

  • “Body Team 12” David Darg and Bryn Mooser
  • “Chau, beyond the Lines” Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
  • “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” Adam Benzine
  • “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
  • “Last Day of Freedom” Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

Achievement in film editing

  • “The Big Short” Hank Corwin
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Margaret Sixel
  • “The Revenant” Stephen Mirrione
  • “Spotlight” Tom McArdle
  • “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

Best foreign language film of the year

  • “Embrace of the Serpent” Colombia
  • “Mustang” France
  • “Son of Saul” Hungary
  • “Theeb” Jordan
  • “A War” Denmark

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin
  • “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared” Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
  • “The Revenant” Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

  • “Bridge of Spies” Thomas Newman
  • “Carol” Carter Burwell
  • “The Hateful Eight” Ennio Morricone
  • “Sicario” Jóhann Jóhannsson
  • “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” John Williams

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

  • “Earned It” from “Fifty Shades of Grey”
    Music and Lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio
  • “Manta Ray” from “Racing Extinction”
    Music by J. Ralph and Lyric by Antony Hegarty
  • “Simple Song #3” from “Youth”
    Music and Lyric by David Lang
  • “Til It Happens To You” from “The Hunting Ground”
    Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga
  • “Writing’s On The Wall” from “Spectre”
    Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Achievement in production design

  • “Bridge of Spies” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
  • “The Danish Girl” Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Michael Standish
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson
  • “The Martian” Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak
  • “The Revenant” Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Hamish Purdy

Best animated short film

  • “Bear Story” Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
  • “Prologue” Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
  • “Sanjay’s Super Team” Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
  • “We Can’t Live without Cosmos” Konstantin Bronzit
  • “World of Tomorrow” Don Hertzfeldt

Best live action short film

  • “Ave Maria” Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
  • “Day One” Henry Hughes
  • “Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)” Patrick Vollrath
  • “Shok” Jamie Donoughue
  • “Stutterer” Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage

Achievement in sound editing

  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Mark Mangini and David White
  • “The Martian” Oliver Tarney
  • “The Revenant” Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
  • “Sicario” Alan Robert Murray
  • “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Matthew Wood and David Acord

Achievement in sound mixing

  • “Bridge of Spies” Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo
  • “The Martian” Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
  • “The Revenant” Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
  • “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

Achievement in visual effects

  • “Ex Machina” Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
  • “Mad Max: Fury Road” Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams
  • “The Martian” Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner
  • “The Revenant” Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer
  • “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould