The Oscars are here! The Oscars are here! If you’ve been following my regular Oscar Beat columns, you know it’s been a long road to today, when the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards have finally been announced. So, how’d it go? Well things fell, more or less, where we expected them to, though as always there were a couple of surprises here and there—some pleasant, some not so much (like the almost complete lack of racial diversity, for instance—which is getting ridiculous). Let’s break down the five biggest shockers.

No Sorkin or Tarantino

Two screenwriting giants, Aaron Sorkin and Quentin Tarantino, were passed over for their respective screenplays this year. While Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is his prickliest venture yet, Sorkin’s been lauded for his unique Steve Jobs adaptation for months, so while I’m loathe to use the word “snub”, I’d say Sorkin’s omission qualifies as a genuine snub rather than a case of someone people simply wanted to get in not landing a nomination. His script twists the biopic genre on its head, and it had Hollywood’s biggest performers buzzing once it started making the rounds. But passion for Steve Jobs cooled quickly after the film’s early push into wide release resulted in something of a box office disaster. It didn’t help matters when Universal just as quickly pulled the movie out of wide release—not the greatest of perceptions. Alas, Sorkin will have to settle for the one Oscar he already has for his masterpiece The Social Network. Although this does clear the Best Adapted Screenplay category up a bit.

As for Tarantino, The Hateful Eight has been his most divisive movie in decades, and the film didn’t come close to the widespread Academy support that Django Unchained was met with—it landed three nominations in total, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Jason Leigh. Tarantino has been pretty vocal about his desire to win another Oscar (he won previously for his Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained screenplays), so one imagines he is not pleased with this morning’s news.

'Carol' Left Out of Best Picture Race

While this doesn’t necessarily qualify as a snub since we knew the film might be on the bubble anyway, Carol’s omission from the Best Picture nominees is certainly the one that hurts the most for me personally. There had been word spreading that some voters found the film too “cold” and “emotionally distant”, which feels like another way for men to say they had trouble connecting with an entirely female point of view. Whatever the reason, Todd Haynes’ lush, intimate love story fell off the Best Picture shortlist in favor of Room, another film that was somewhat on the bubble given its tough subject matter. So while the Carol omission stings, the blow is somewhat softened by the fact that another female-driven film was nominated in its stead.

Lenny Abrahamson Over Ridley Scott for Best Director

As I was putting together my predictions, the Best Director category was one of the toughest to finalize. The fact that the Directors Guild of America Awards nominations list rarely matches up 1 for 1 with the Oscar shortlist in favor of one substitution meant that someone would likely be dropped, but who? Ridley Scott had been the favorite to win the Best Director trophy for his work on The Martian, something of a career achievement given that he was passed over for Best Picture-winner Gladiator in favor of Steven Soderbergh all those years ago. I surmised that George Miller was in danger of being dropped in favor of Carol’s Todd Haynes, but instead, indie filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson made the cut for his impressive work on Room, while Scott was left out entirely. Perhaps voting members weren’t quick to forget Exodus: Gods and Kings after all?

Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara Go Supporting After All

There was plenty of shuffling with regards to prognostications for the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories in recent months due to, well, category fraud. Alicia Vikander’s turn in The Danish Girl and Rooney Mara’s in Carol are both undeniably lead performances, but their respective studios campaigned them for Supporting consideration. That doesn’t always work (see: Kate Winslet being nominated for Best Actress in The Reader over Supporting—and winning!), and critics groups almost entirely eschewed Vikander’s Danish Girl work, awarding her Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Ex Machina instead. And so the question came down to whether Vikander or Mara would land Best Actress nominations over Supporting, if one would be left out over the other, or what. But in the end, they both landed Best Supporting Actress nominations, just as planned.

Tom Hardy Scores Nomination for ‘The Revenant’

We had a feeling The Revenant might have a strong showing with the Academy, but few were predicting Tom Hardy’s fascinating turn in the film to land in the Best Supporting Actor race. Indeed, while Beasts of No Nation was in danger of falling prey to the “too hard to watch” syndrome, most figured Idris Elba would land a nomination for his supporting turn in the film thanks to plenty of star-studded screenings hosted in the Los Angeles area. Alas, the love for The Revenant was strong, and that extended to Hardy who landed a Best Supporting Actor nomination (for a truly unique performance, as always) while Elba was left off the shortlist.

The 'Spectre' Song? Really?

This year’s crop of contenders for Best Original Song was, admittedly, slim pickens, but most assumed that Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s ode to the late Paul Walker “See You Again” from Furious 7 would at least make the cut. After all, it’s an emotional and well-crafted song that genuinely pays tribute to Walker within the context of the film. But nope, this particular branch of the Academy instead opted to nominate Sam Smith’s wholly mediocre “The Writing’s on the Wall” from Spectre. In the immortal words of Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers, "Really?"

Not So Surprising: Oscars So White...Again

So this one actually isn't a huge surprise, but yet again this year's crop of nominees is dominated by white people. Creed director Ryan Coogler, Creed star Michael B. Jordan, Creed supporting actress Tessa Thompson, anyone of color from Straight Outta Compton, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez or Mya Taylor from Tangerine, Idris Elba or Abraham Attah from Beasts of No Nation—any of these would stand in fine stature opposite this year's crop of nominees, and yet there's once again a lack of diversity in voters' choices. Of course the Academy doesn't vote as a whole—these are choices made by individuals, and ones that are reinforced by studio campaigns and Oscar prognosticators favoring "safe" picks rather than bold choices—but it's a reflection of a systemic problem within Hollywood, especially in a year in which we've seen such tremendous output from filmmakers and performers of color. Disappointing, frustrating, disheartening.