2016 Oscar Nominations: ‘The Revenant’ and ‘Mad Max’ In Lead

We made it! Oscar nominations day has finally arrived, putting to rest all of your endless predictions about the most ambiguous awards season in decades, until, of course, we start prognosticating about the nominees.

So how do the 2016 Oscars look? Alejandro G. Iñarritu has stolen the hearts of the Academy once again with The Revenant taking the lead with 12 nominations. That was followed by Mad Max: Fury Road with 10 nominations, The Martian with seven, Carol with six and The Big Short and Star Wars: The Force Awakens tied at five.

Looking at those numbers, the nominations aren’t all that surprising, but there were some major snubs. For one, Todd Haynes’ Carol failed to get much recognition in the major categories, not getting nominated for Best Picture or Best Director. It still ended up with six nominations, two in the acting categories, Adapted Screenplay and the rest in the technical categories. Still, this year is Cate Blanchett’s seventh Oscar nomination, while her costar Rooney Mara can add to her resume that she got an Oscar and a Razzie nom in the same year. The biggest surprise top nominee is Room, which snuck its way to Best Picture and Director for Lenny Abrahamson, a name few anticipated to be included in the latter list. On top of Haynes, the other director shut out of the race was Ridley Scott, who many pundits believed a shoe in. Other snubs include no screenplay nominations for Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.

This year also marks a few significant things, both good and bad. For one, this is John Williams 50th Oscar nomination (congrats!). Sadly though, 2016 looks to be the Second Whitest Oscars Ever with zero nominations for actors of color – some of us were predicting Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation) or Michael B. Jordan (Creed) would sneak in. As far as age, the median age of actors nominated this year is 43.4, while the women’s median is 37.4.

Chris Rock will host the 2016 Oscars will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, February 28 at 7 p.m. ET.

See the list of 2016 Oscar nominees below:

Best Picture

The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Best Director

Adam McKay, The Big Short
Alejandro G. Ińarritu, The Revenant
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Best Actor

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

Best Actress

Brie Larson, Room
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Best Original Screenplay

Matt Charman, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Bridge of Spies
Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, Spotlight
Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen, Josh Cooley, Meg LeFauve, Inside Out
Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus, Straight Outta Compton

Best Adapted Screenplay