Oscars 2016: Nominations

Leading the pack is The Revenant with a staggering twelve nominations. This definitely looks like Leonardo DiCaprio's year. Following behind, interestingly for an action-thriller, is Mad Max: Fury Road with ten.

The big awards throw up few snubs and surprises. Namely, Tom Hardy has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant despite not being recognised anywhere else in the awards circuit. Another surprise comes in Best Director nominees Lenny Abrahamson for Room and George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road for films which wouldn't ordinarily get this attention. No attention for Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, or Danny Boyle as directors and Aaron Sorkin as the world's most prolific screenwriter.

Major love for other Britons in the list, though. From the predictable Eddie Redmayne who stands a chance for his second consecutive Oscar in the second consecutive year. Alicia Vikander, Saoirse Ronan, Michael Fassbender, Christian Bale, Kate Winslet, and Charlotte Rampling, Roger Deakins and British films like Brooklyn, The Danish Girl, Ex Machina and 45 Years. This marks Deakins' thirteenth Best Cinematography nomination with no wins. Also, a British one has been nominated for Best Short Film in Stutterer.

Straight Outta Compton receives surprisingly few nominations – only one for its screenplay when it had expectations all the way up to Best Picture.

A Best Visual Effects nomination to The Martian over The Hunger Games: Mockingjay pt. II and Cinderella is interesting. Of course Amy is nominated for Best Documentary and up against strong competition with The Look of Silence but not He Named Me Malala. Lady Gaga makes another wave in the screen world with a nomination for Best Original Song for the documentary The Hunting Ground. Also nominated are Sam Smith and The Weeknd for Spectre and Fifty Shades of Grey, respectively.

Films like Sicario and, of course, Star Wars: The Force Awakens stand very strong in craft categories with both of them nominated for Best Sound Editing among many others.

Read the full list of nominations and my money of who will win in bold, below:

Best Picture

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

Best Actor

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Supporting Actress

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

Best Directing

Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Best 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

Colombia, Embrace of the Serpent
France, Mustang
Hungary, Son of Saul
Jordan, Theeb
Denmark, A War

Best Original Score

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

Best 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 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

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

Best Original Screenplay

Bridge of Spies, Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, Alex Garland
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Spotlight, Josh Singer and 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

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

Best Cinematography

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

Best 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

Best 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

Best Original Song

"Earned It," Fifty Shades of Grey, Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio
"Manta Ray," Racing Extinction, J. Ralph and Antony Hegarty
"Simple Song #3," Youth, David Lang
"'Til It Happens to You," The Haunting Ground, Diane Warren and Lady Gaga
"Writing's on the Wall," Spectre, Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

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

Best 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

Best 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

Image courtesy of Flickr/tricks ware