The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it's quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee's Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today's nominations, it now looks like it's (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.lincoln-movie-posterBEST PICTURE

  • Argo
  • Amour
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Django Unchained
  • Les Miserables
  • Life of Pi
  • Lincoln
  • Silver Linings Playbook
  • Zero Dark Thirty

[Adam's note: By some miracle I predicted this category perfectly. I love Moonrise Kingdom and I'm sad not to see it land a nomination, but this is one of the more solid nominees lists in recent years. Not many "filler" nominees like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close or The Blind Side. Based on today's nominations and how the guilds have been going so far, it looks like it's going to be down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the win, but my money's on the former.]

BEST DIRECTOR 

  • Ang Lee – Life of Pi
  • Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
  • David O. Russell - Silver Linings Playbook
  • Michael Haneke - Amour
  • Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

[I'm still kind of in shock about the snubs for Bigelow and Affleck, as both films were very much director-driven successes.  Affleck's miss makes a tiny bit more sense as the Academy isn't always fast to recognize actors turned directors, but Zero Dark Thirty is objectively one of the best films of the year if not the decade. This nuttiness is likely a result of the date changes.  This was the first year that Oscar nomination ballots had to be turned in before the DGA announced its list of nominees, hence the reason why the two lists look so different.  Haneke had been a dark horse for some time and Russell was always a fringe contender, but Zeitlin's nomination is actually a pretty nice surprise.]

BEST ACTOR

  • silver-linings-playbook-poster
    Denzel Washington – Flight
  • Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
  • Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
  • Joauquin Phoenix - The Master
  • Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook

[This category filled out pretty expectedly, as many had been predicting either John Hawkes or Phoenix for the fifth slot. Phoenix undoubtedly gives one of the best performances of the year, so it's nice to see that recognized.]

BEST ACTRESS 

  • Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Naomi Watts – The Impossible
  • Emmanuelle Riva - Amour
[As with Best Actor, not too many surprises in this category either.  Riva and Wallis make Oscar history as the oldest and youngest nominees ever, respectively.  This is a two-person race, though, between Chastain and Lawrence.]

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 

  • Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
  • Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Alan Arkin – Argo
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
  • Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained

[Another category I somehow predicted perfectly.  That fifth slot was always up in the air, but I had a feeling that Waltz's performance was just too good to overlook.  A neat bit of trivia: every single nominee here has won before.]

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS 

  • Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
  • Helen Hunt – The Sessions
  • Sally Field – Lincoln
  • les-miserables-poster-anne-hathaway
    Amy Adams – The Master
     
  • Jacki Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook

[The story of this category is that Weaver's nomination coupled with Russell's Best Director nod and the Best Editing nomination puts Silver Linings Playbook back in the hunt for the Best Picture win, especially now that Argo and Zero Dark Thirty have an uphill battle to face with no Best Director nods.]

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  • Mark Boal – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained
  • Michael Haneke – Amour
  • Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom 
  • John Gatins - Flight

[I was really, really, gunning for Rian Johnson to land a nomination for Looper, especially since he has the WGA nod, but alas the Academy went with Flight.  So much for originality, eh?]

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  • Tony Kushner – Lincoln
  • Chris Terrio – Argo
  • David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
  • David Magee – Life of Pi
  • Lucy Alibar, Behn Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild
[As with Looper in the original category, many thought The Perks of Being a Wallflower might land a surprise slot in Best Adapted, but the Academy obviously really went for Beasts this year.] BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE 
  • Amour – Austria
  • No – Chile
  • paranorman-poster A Royal Affair – Barbara
  • Kon-Tiki – Norway
  • War Witch - Canada
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
  • Frankenweenie
  • Brave
  • ParaNorman
  • Wreck-It Ralph
  • The Pirates! Band of Misfits 
[The Pirates! is a bit of a surprise nominee here, but it's nice to see stop-motion getting a lot of love in this category.] BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 
  • The Gatekeepers
  • How to Survive a Plague
  • Searching for Sugar Man
  • 5 Broken Cameras
  • The Invisible War 
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT 
  • Inocente
  • Kings Point
  • Mondays at Racine
  • Open Heart
  • Redemption
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN 
  • Lincoln
  • Life of Pi
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  • martin-freeman-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-poster Anna Karenina
  • Les Miserables 
[A little surprised to see The Hobbit nominated here following all the hubbub over the 48 fps making the sets look like, well sets.]
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 
  • Claudio Miranda – Life of Pi
  • Roger Deakins – Skyfall
  • Janusz Kaminski – Lincoln
  • Robert Richardson – Django Unchained
  • Seamus McGarvey – Anna Karenina
[Could this finally be the year that Roger Deakins wins an Oscar?  Skyfall is some of the best work of his career, so here's hoping.] BEST FILM EDITING 
  • William Goldenberg, Dylan Tichenor – Zero Dark Thirty
  • William Goldenberg – Argo
  • Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers – Silver Linings Playbook
  • Michael Kahn – Lincoln
  • Tim Squyers – Life of Pi
[One of the quintessential categories for predicting the Best Picture win is Best Editing, so odds are strong that our eventual winner is one of these five films.] BEST ORIGINAL SCORE 
  • Dario Marianelli – Anna Karenina
  • Mychael Danna – Life of Pi
  • Thomas Newman - Skyfall
  • John Williams – Lincoln
  • Alexandre Desplat – Argo
[Given all the nominations for Beasts, I'm a little surprised to see the film not nominated for Best Score, but some have been talking about how the Academy isn't keen on recognizing directors who compose their own scores.  That would certainly explain the Cloud Atlas snub.] skyfall-poster BEST ORIGINAL SONG 
  • “Skyfall” – Skyfall
  • “Suddenly” – Les Miserables
  •  “Pi’s Lullaby” – Life of Pi
  • “Before My Time” – Chasing Ice
  • “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” - Ted
[Oscar host Seth MacFarlane is also a surprise nominee, as he's listed as a co-writer on "Everybody Needs a Best Friend."  Really, though, does anybody think that Adele won't win this?] BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 
  • Life of Pi
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  • Prometheus
  • Snow White and the Huntsman
  • The Avengers 
[This is the category where The Dark Knight Rises had a solid shot at a nomination, but the film was completely shut out of this year's Oscars.  The history of this category tells us that a Best Picture nominee is heavily favored over all the other contenders, so look for Life of Pi to most likely take home the trophy.] BEST COSTUME DESIGN 
  • Lincoln
  • Anna Karenina
  • Les Miserables
  • Mirror Mirror
  • Snow White and the Huntsman
[Mirror Mirror's one and only nomination.] BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING 
  • Hitchcock
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  • Les Miserables
zero-dark-thirty-poster [I'm also pretty surprised that Rick Baker wasn't nominated here for Men in Black 3, as he won this category for his work in the first Men in Black film and MIB3 had some truly inspired makeup designs.] BEST SOUND EDITING
  • Skyfall
  • Argo
  • Zero Dark Thirty
  • Life of Pi
  • Django Unchained
BEST SOUND MIXING 
  • Skyfall
  • Lincoln
  • Life of Pi
  • Les Miserables
  • Argo 
BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) 
  • Adam and Dog
  • Fresh Guacamole
  • Head over Heels
  • The Longest Daycare
  • Paperman  
BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE-ACTION) 
  • Asad
  • Buzkashi Boys
  • Curfew
  • Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
  • Henry
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