You know what the several-thousand-member-strong Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences liked this year? The same movies everybody else did! No, really! The King's Speech led the 83rd annual Academy Awards nominations with 12 nods overall. True Grit followed close behind with 10, and then came The Social Network and Inception with eight a piece. Those four movies, as well as the other six nominated for Best Picture, have been nominated pretty much everywhere else, so the Academy was apparently feeling largely agreeable this year.
Unlike last year, with The Blind Side and A Serious Man hanging out in the Best Picture category with only one other nomination to show for it, every Best Picture nominee this year boasts at least four nominations total, which means there were a few mild surprises, like John Hawkes hanging on for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Winter's Bone or 127 Hours doing surprisingly well in the technical categories. But if you weren't a Best Picture nominee? Well, you were pretty much screwed, with highly acclaimed movies like Blue Valentine and Another Year each scoring only one nomination a piece. As a further sign of just how top-heavy the list is this year, the most-nominated film without a Best Picture nomination is that all-time classic Alice In Wonderland, which scored three nominations for its art direction, costume design, and visual effects.
There were snubs, of course, with the biggest probably being Inception missing out for its editing and for Christopher Nolan's direction. (Nolan will have to be content with a screenplay nomination.) But Andrew Garfield also missed out for being the one seemingly nice guy in The Social Network, and Ryan Gosling couldn't match onscreen wife, Michelle Williams, with a Blue Valentine nod, making this approximately the 500th time Ryan Gosling has missed an expected nomination in favor of whoever happened to capture Julia Roberts' fancy that year. And that one guy you know who's always raving about how fucking awesome The Town was will be saddened that only Jeremy Renner could manage a nomination from the well-regarded film. Two films from former Academy favorites, Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, were completely overlooked.
Still, there's enough awesomely weird stuff around the edges this year to go around. Exit Through The Gift Shop, Dogtooth, and The Illusionist are ALL Oscar nominees now. Winter's Bone, The A.V. Club's number one movie of 2010, pulled in four nominations. And you can add Unstoppable, Salt, and The Wolfman to the list of random movies that got one nomination in a technical category and can, thus, call themselves Oscar-nominated films, a proud company that includes Benji and the 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young. Also, Barney's Version somehow got a nomination for makeup, and somebody somewhere made a movie called The Gruffalo (which will hopefully be introduced by Supporting Actor nominee Mark Ruffalo). So there's that!
The full list of nominees follows.
Best Picture:
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
Best Director:
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
David O. Russell, The Fighter
Best Actor:
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King's Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours
Best Actress:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes,Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit
Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone
Best Original Screenplay:
Mike Leigh, Another Year
Keith Dorrington, Eric Johnson, Scott Silver, and Paul Tamasy, The Fighter
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
David Seidler, The King's Speech
Best Foreign Language Film:
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In A Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Hors La Loi (Outside The Law) (Algeria)
Best Documentary Feature:
Exit Through The Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land
Best Animated Feature:
How To Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3
Best Cinematography:
Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Wally Pfister, Inception
Danny Cohen, The King's Speech
Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network
Roger Deakins, True Grit
Best Editing:
Jon Harris, 127 Hours
Andrew Weisblum, Black Swan
Pamela Martin, The Fighter
Tariq Anwar, The King's Speech
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, The Social Network
Best Art Direction:
Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara, Alice In Wonderland
Stuart Craig and Stephenie McMillan, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, and Doug Mowat, Inception
Eve Stewart and Judy Farr, The King's Speech
Jess Gonchor and Nancy Haigh, True Grit
Best Costume Design:
Colleen Atwood, Alice In Wonderland
Antonella Cannarozzi, I Am Love
Jenny Beavan, The King's Speech
Sandy Powell, The Tempest
Mary Zophres, True Grit
Best Makeup:
Adrien Morot, Barney's Version
Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk, and Yolanda Toussieng, The Way Back
Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, The Wolfman
Best Original Score:
A.R. Rahman, 127 Hours
John Powell, How To Train Your Dragon
Hans Zimmer, Inception
Alexandre Desplat, The King's Speech
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network
Best Original Song:
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours, by A.R. Rahman, Dido, and Rollo Armstrong
"Coming Home" from Country Strong, by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges, and Hillary Lindsey
"I See The Light" from Tangled, by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3, by Randy Newman
Best Sound Design:
Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick, Inception
Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen, and John Midgley, The King's Speech
Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan, and William Sarokin, Salt
Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, and Mark Weingarten, The Social Network
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter F. Kurland, True Grit
Best Sound Editing:
Richard King, Inception
Tom Myers and Michael Silvers, Toy Story 3
Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague, Tron Legacy
Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey, True Grit
Mark P. Stoeckinger, Unstoppable
Best Visual Effects:
Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas, and Sean Phillips, Alice In Wonderland
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz, and Nicolas Aithadi, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephen Trojanski, and Joe Farrell, Hereafter
Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, and Peter Bebb, Inception
Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Jed Wright, and Daniel Sudick, Iron Man 2
Best Animated Short:
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let's Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, Carnet De Voyage (Madagascar, A Journey Diary)
Best Live Action Short:
The Confession
The Crush
God Of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143
Best Documentary Short:
Killing In The Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors Of Qiugang