The road to the Oscars 2014

The recent announcement of the 86^th Academy Award nominations has people talking, and the conversation has generally been positive.

Ellen Degeneres will be returning as the host this year. She last hosted the Oscars in 2007.

JNM Journal will post regular updates on all things Oscar in the run-up to the Mar. 2 awards ceremony.  So here’s a look at the nominees.

Nominees for best picture

• American Hustle
• Gravity
• 12 Years a Slave
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Captain Phillips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Nebraska
• Philomena

Of the top nine movie nominees, American Hustle and Gravity lead the pack with 10 nominations each. Both movies are nominated in the categories for: directing, film editing, production design and best actress in a leading role.

Jean-Marc Vallee of Dallas Buyers Club hails from Quebec. His movie got a nod for best actor, best supporting actor, film editing, make-up and hairstyling and writing of an original screenplay. However, he didn’t get recognized in the director category.

Another Canadian link to the Oscars is in the original score category. Canada’s own Owen Pallet and Arcade Fire member Will Butler are nominated for their original score in Spike Jonze’s Her, starring Joaquin Pheonix and Scarlett Johansson.

Nominees for best actor in a leading role

• Christian Bale, “American Hustle”
• Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club”
• Bruce Dern, “Nebraska”
• Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”
• Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street”

The crowd favourite this year seems to be Leonardo DiCaprio. He has three previous Oscar nominations, but has never won. He is nominated for Best Actor (in a leading role) for The Wolf of Wall Street.

Despite all of the attention that the big flicks are getting, there are other pictures nominated for Oscars. Inside Llewyn Davis, Grandmaster, The Great Gatsby, Saving Mister Banks are just some of the many nominations this year.

Here are the rest of the nominations.

Best director

• Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
• Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
• Alexander Payne, Nebraska
• David O. Russell, American Hustle
• Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

Best actress in a leading role

• Amy Adams, American Hustle
• Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
• Judi Dench, Philomena
• Meryl Streep, August: Osage County
• Sandra Bullock, Gravity

Best supporting actor

• Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
• Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
• Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
• Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street
• Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Best actress in a supporting role

• Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
• Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
• Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
• Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
• June Squibb, Nebraska

Best animated feature film

• The Croods
• Despicable Me 2
• Ernest & Celestine
• Frozen
• The Wind Rises

Cinematography

• The Grandmaster, Philippe Le Sourd
• Gravity, Emmanuel Lubezki
• Inside Llewyn Davis, Bruno Delbonnel
• Nebraska, Phedon Papamichael
  
• Prisoners, Roger A. Deakins

Costume design

• American Hustle, Michael Wilkinson
• The Grandmaster, William Chang Suk Ping
• The Great Gatsby, Catherine Martin
• The Invisible Woman, Michael O’Connor
• 12 Years a Slave, Patricia Norris

Documentary feature

• The Act of Killing
• Dirty Wars
• Cutie and the Boxer
• The Square
• 20 Feet from Stardom

Documentary short 

• The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
• Facing Fear
• Karama Has No Walls
• CaveDigger
• Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall

Film editing

• American Hustle, Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten
• Dallas Buyers Club, John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa
• Captain Phillips, Christopher Rouse
• Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger
• 12 Years a Slave, Joe Walker

Foreign fanguage film

• The Broken Circle Breakdown, Belgium
• The Hunt, Denmark
• The Missing Picture, Cambodia
• Omar, Palestine
• The Great Beauty, Italy

Original score

• The Book Thief, John Williams
• Philomena, Alexandre Desplat
• Gravity, Steven Price
• Her, William Butler and Owen Pallett
• Saving Mr. Banks, Thomas Newman

Original song

• Alone Yet Not Alone from Alone Yet Not Alone
• The Moon Song from Her
• Happy from Despicable Me 2
• Let It Go from Frozen
• Ordinary Love from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Makeup and hairstyling

• Dallas Buyers Club, Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews
• The Lone Ranger, Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny
• Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, Stephen Prouty

Production design

• American Hustle, Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler
• Gravity, Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard
• The Great Gatsby, Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn
• 12 Years a Slave, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker
• Her, Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena

Animated short film

• Feral
• Get a Horse!
• Possessions
• Room on the Broom
• Mr. Hublot

Live action short film

• Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)
• Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)
• The Voorman Problem
• Helium
• Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)

Sound editing

• All Is Lost, Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Brent Burge
• Captain Phillips, Oliver Tarney
• Gravity, Glenn Freemantle
• Lone Survivor, Wylie Stateman

Sound mixing

• Captain Phillips, Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro
• Gravity, Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson
• Inside Llewyn Davis, Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
• Lone Survivor, Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow

Visual effects

• Gravity, Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds
• The Lone Ranger, Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier
• Iron Man 3, Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick
• Star Trek Into Darkness, Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton

Writing- adapted screenplay

• 12 Years a Slave, screenplay by John Ridley
• The Wolf of Wall Street, screenplay by Terence Winter
• Before Midnight, written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
• Captain Phillips, screenplay by Billy Ray
• Philomena, screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope

Writing- original screenplay

• American Hustle, written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
• Dallas Buyers Club, written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack
• Her, written by Spike Jonze
• Blue Jasmine, written by Woody Allen
• Nebraska, written by Bob Nelson

See what people are saying about the nominees: