And finally, the last and most important category in any film awards, best picture. This year’s nominated features prove, if nothing else, what a great cinematic harvest 2014 has brought.
The ubiquitous and well advertised Oscar favorites
Film Nominations 2014
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Director
In 2014 Alain Guiraudie; Pawel Pawlikowsky; Bennett Miller; Lav Diaz; Dan Gilroy; Nuri Ceylan Bilge; The Dardenne Brothers; J.C. Chandor; Paul Thomas Anderson; David Cronemberg; Bong Joon-Ho; Lars Von Trier; Xavier Dolan; David Fincher; Phil Lord & Chris Miller; Ava DuVernay and James Gray offered us remarkable directorial work.
However, the authors who stood up from such an illustrious rest were
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Actor
The one category that stood out from the rest during this year’s awards season was best actor. The sheer quality, quantity and diversity of candidates were such that even doubling the number of nomination slots wouldn’t have make justice to all the deserving ones. Among them, career best performances by Channing Tatum as the Olympic wrestler in ‘Foxcatcher’ or John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as the veteran gay couple whose comfortable life takes a turn for the worst after getting married in ‘Love Is Strange’.
Register changes as extraordinary as they were unexpected from Ralph Fiennes and his comic turn in ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ or Joaquin Phoenix druggy, hippy PI of ‘Inherent Vice’, next to such memorable moments as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s swansong role as Le Carre’s spy of ‘A Most Wanted Man’; Jack O’Connell’s violent young inmate of ‘Starred Up’; Brendan Gleeson’s priest under death treat in the dark tragic comedy ‘Cavalry’; Haluk Bilginer’s pompous retired intellectual turned owner of a secluded hotel in ‘Winter Sleep’ or Pierre Deladonchamps’ falling for the dangerous appeal of a mysterious man appearing on a cruising site where killings begin to happen in ‘Stranger By The Lake’ and last, but not least, Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar frontrunner, impressive Stephen Hawkins impersonation in ‘The Theory Of Everything’. Any other year all of those actors could have easily earned not just nominations, but the actual prizes.
The outstanding works that made our final shortlist were
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Actress
Despite such standout turns as Reese Witherspoon’s as the girl going on a self-discovery trek in ‘Wild’, her most welcome return to form; Felicity Jones and Rosamund Pike having their breakthrough roles in ‘The Theory Of Everything’ and ‘Gone Girl’ respectively or Julianne Moore nailing her second outstanding performance of 2014, also the Oscar frontrunner’s, for the still unreleased in the UK ‘Still Alice’; many an Oscar commentator complained this year’s about the limited number of good roles for actresses in contention for the awards season. However, if that may ring true for Hollywood fare, they just had to look a bit farther at thevinternational arthouse and genre crops to find out such first class performances as Scarlett Johansson’s,the icy alien in ‘Under The Skin’; Tilda Swinton as the loving vampire of ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ and Essie Davis as the bereaved mother of ‘The Babadook’.
The six actress who stood up from such high competitions are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Ensemble Cast
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A year of remarkable acting ensemble efforts such as the notable casts of ‘Mr. Turner’s’, where Mike Leigh had a role for pretty much every actor he’s ever worked with and they were all excellent on it; ‘Inherent Vice’ with half of Hollywood, led by Joaquin Phoenix, turning up for Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Inherent vice’; “Maps Of the Stars’ which spawned two of our other acting nominations and that also featured great parts for Robert Pattinson; John Cusack; Olivia Wilde and Mia Wasikowska; who was also noteworthy in Jim Jarmusch’s romantic take on the vampire myth ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’, alongside the ever excellent Tilda Swinton; Tom Hiddleston and John Hurt.
But besides all of them, the six ensembles that made our best of the year shortlist are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Supporting Actor
Tye Sheridan in ‘Joe’; Andy Serkis in ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’; Riz Ahmed in ‘Nightcrawler ‘ and Patrick d’Assumçao in ‘Stranger By The Lake’ all gave memorable performances that narrowly missed our shortlist.
The top-notch ones who made it are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Supporting Actress
Somehow a more crowded category than its best actress partner with performances of the caliber of Emma Stone as the daughter/assistant of a fading star in ‘Birdman’; Imelda Staunton’s Welsh lead of a small miners community in ‘Pride’; Demet Akbağ as the bitter sister of an ex-actor turned hotel owner in ‘Winter Sleep’ or Dorothy Atkinson as Mr. Turner’s maid not making it to the final selection.
The ones who got shortlisted instead are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Original Screenplay
This has been a vintage year for Original screenplays, the quality and quantity of which has been so high than best picture nominated works such as ‘Stranger By The Lake’ or ‘Ida’, as well as such acclaimed ones as the Dardenne’s Two Days One Night or J.C. Chandor’s ‘A Most Violent Year’ had to be left out of our selection.
The seven nominated screenplays were
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Adapted Screenplay
The balance between the best original and adapted screenplays last year was heavily inclined towards new stories, of which we were spoilt for choice. There haven’t been as many notable adaptations to the big screen, albeit there were enough as to prevent two high profile literary ones to make our final list of nominees: Nuri Ceylan Bilge’s “Winter Sleep’ freely inspired by “The Wife”, a short story by Anton Chekhov and Lav Díaz’s extraordinary complex ‘Norte, The End Of Story’ which took Dostoyevsky’s “Crime And Punishment’ as inspiration to reflect the current social, political and historical situation of the Philippines.
The adapted screenplays that made our list are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Documentary
Perhaps because the last few years have been a golden age for the documentary, delivering an unprecedented wealth of titles that became box office hits, 2014 paled a bit in comparison. There were still some remarkable works, but this has been hardly a vintage year for the genre.
The year’s documentary harvest was far from scarce, though, and included such notable works as “The Overnighters’ with his resonating financial crisis story of a pastor in North Dakota who controversially turned his church into a refuge for homeless workers coming en masse in search of a job within the area’s oil industry; LFF winner “My Fathers, My Mother and Me” and its exploration of the way of life in a free sex, no family boundaries commune during the 60s by one of the children who grew up there; the career of Riot Girrl extraordinaire Kathleen Hanna given a deserved review in ‘The Punk Singer’; Frederick Wiseman researches on two prestigious institutions in “At Berkeley” and “National Gallery”; Mark Cousins interesting psychological observations of “A History of Children and Film”; the trial which put an end to California’s anti gay-marriage Proposition 8 was celebrated and well documented in “The Case Against 8’; or the Investigation of the causes and side-effects behind Africa’s post-colonial wars in ‘Concerning Violence’.
Despite such contenders, the six works which made our shortlist are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Cinematography
Another heavily disputed category, this year many deserving cinematographers were left behind due to the excellent overall visual quality on offer. Among them the ever reliable Roger Deakins and his work in Angelina Jolie ‘Unbroken’; Philippe Le Sourd’s exhuberant Oscar nominated camera work for Wong Kar-Wai’s martial arts saga ‘The Grandmaster’; Bradford Young (Selma) who did get shortlisted for another of his works; Darius Khondi’s exquisite sepia-toned portrait of New York circa 1920 in ‘The Immigrant’; Hoyte Van Hoytema’s diverse work in ‘Intersellar’, depicting a post-Apocalyptic earth as well as mind-blowing space journey; Rodrigo Prieto’s beautiful Western imagery for Tommy Lee Jones’’The Homesman’ or Daniel Landin’s disturbingly alien visuals of ‘Under The Skin’.
The ones who make the shortlist are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Production Design
Another traditionally contested category, our shortlist for best production design features James Chindlund’s unbelievable realism showing the epic battle between humans and apes in ‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’; David Crank’s recreating the seventies when the end of the hippy golden era gave way to a more conservative and troubled America in ‘Inherent Vice’ in which the Californian seaside way of life meets Shady corporation buildings; sleazy parlours and millionaires’ houses; Nathan Crowley’s impeccably crafted post-apocalyptic earth and space travels of ‘Interstellar’.
Also nominated are
#FilmNominations2014 : Best Animated Picture
2014 hasn’t perhaps been the greatest of years for animated films. Some of the most acclaimed titles of the awards season such as ‘Song Of The Sea’ and ‘The Tale Of Princess Kaguya’ haven’t been released yet, while big players such as Pixar didn’t have a big title on their hands, therefore the number of potential candidates felt a bit low.
Our nominees shortlist for this year’s best animated picture includes
#FilmNominations2014 : Best First Feature
In the category destined to reward fresh directorial talent and their debuts, four of the six works shortlisted are multiple nominees and have already been introduced elsewhere: Dan Gilroy’s creepy look at media’s appetite for sensationalism in ‘Nightcrawler’; Benedikt Erlingsson’s awe inspiring Icelandic drama “Of Horses and Men”; Jennifer Kent’s acclaimed Aussie horror ‘The Babadook’ and Diego Quemada-Díez’s moving social realism in ‘The Golden Dream’.
The remaining two