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The nominations for the 2015 Academy Awards were announced Thursday morning. And the nominations (and omissions), for better or worse, made history. Here are some of the storylines going into the 2015 Oscars:
1) There are no people of color nominated in acting roles
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The all-white acting categories of the 2015 Oscars
This year, the winners in the big four acting categories will all be white because there were no non-white actors nominated in those categories. The last time this happened was in 2011, The Hollywood Reporter explains (THR is apparently counting Hailee Steinfeld —even though her mother is multi-ethnic— and Javier Bardem as white. Huffington Post counts Bardem as non-white). And the last time before that was in 1998, which makes the 2015 the second (or first, depending on how you count Steinfeld and Bardem) time in almost 20 years that all the nominees are white.
David Oyelowo, who plays Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma was considered an Oscar contender but was not nominated.
2) There were no female directors or screenwriters nominated this year.
The last time that women were shut out of the Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay was in 1999. Since then, there has been at least one woman nominated in at least one of those categories. The last female director nominated was Kathryn Bigelow in 2009 for Hurt Locker. Bigelow won that year, and was only the fourth woman to be nominated in Oscar history.
Watch: The Oscars' horrible lack of diversity, explained in 2 minutes
3) Grand Budapest Hotel is the earliest-released Best Picture nominee since Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Oscar pundits often talk about a film's momentum and whether it has maintained buzz over time. The Grand Budapest Hotel was released in March of 2014, so it can certainly make this argument. Silence of the Lambs was released in February of 1991 — and went on to win.
4) There has never been a Best Actor category that consists of all first time nominees for the last 80-plus years.
Bradley Cooper, who was nominated for American Sniper keeps this streak alive.
5) Morten Tyldum is the first Norwegian nominated for Best Director.
Tyldum directed The Imitation Game. Viva Norway.
6) Bennett Miller is first director to get nominated without his film in Best Picture since the Academy went to more than five nominees in the top category in 2010.
If you're an actor, Miller is also a director you want directing you. Prior to Foxcatcher, Miller directed Capote and Moneyball. Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Catherine Keener (Capote), Brad Pitt (Moneyball), and Jonah Hill (Moneyball) were all nominated for their work in Miller's films, and Hoffman won the Best Actor prize in 2005.
7) The total combined domestic gross for the eight Best Picture films is $203,078,365. Guardians of the Galaxy's domestic gross is $333,130,696.
According to journalist Jon Erlichman, the nominees' combined worldwide gross is under $500 million:
The 8 films nominated for best picture have generated a combined $422.4 million at the box office globally #OscarNoms
— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) January 15, 2015
As a comparison, the critically-panned Transformers: Age of Extinction grossed over $1 billion worldwide last year.
8) The Middle Earth/Hobbit franchise has 37 nominations to date.
That's out-pacing Marvel's cinematic universe, which had four (Iron Man with two, Iron Man 3 with one, and Avengers with one) up until this morning. With Guardians of the Galaxy's (two) and Captain America's (one) nods this morning, Marvel's films stand at seven.
9) Only three films have won the top five awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay).
This isn't happening next year. No film is nominated across the board in the big five categories, like American Hustle and The Silver Linings Playbook were in the last two years.
