This morning’s nominees for the 87th Academy Awards added plenty of drama to the awards season. There was the usual number of shocking surprises and snubs, with some films pulling off a particularly poor showing and others doing better than expected.

The full list of nominees can be found here. There are only eight films up for Best Picture, which is a shocker itself. American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything and Whiplash were nominated for the top prize.

Neil Patrick Harris is hosting the Oscars on Feb. 22, live on ABC from Hollywood.

Without any further delay, here’s a look at some of the surprises. We’re still trying to figure out how Selma only walked away with two nominations, while The LEGO Movie missed out on Best Animated Feature.

image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com

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What Ever Happened To Slema?

Did questions over the historical accuracy of Ava DuVernay’s Martin Luther King Jr. biopic Selma really kill the movie’s chances at the Oscars? The film managed just two nominations, one for Best Picture and another for John Legend and Common’s song “Glory.”

The Academy passed over a chance to make DuVernay the first African American woman nominated for Best Director. They missed an opportunity to give David Oyelowo a shot at Best Actor.

If anyone cares about this - and everyone should - by not nominating DuVernay or Angelina Jolie for Unbroken, the Academy extended its streak without a female Director nod to five years. No woman has been nominated since Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker.

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Where is The LEGO Movie?

Easily the most surprising snub wasn’t in any of the major categories. Instead, the year’s biggest animated movie, The LEGO Movie, wasn’t nominated for Best Animated Feature. It was nominated for Best Original Song for “Everything is Awesome.” However, clearly, the Academy didn’t think everything was awesome with the movie.

There’s going to be screams of Disney bias though, since Big Hero 6 did get nominated.

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Nightcrawler trips up

While it looked like Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler was getting stronger as the awards season went on, the film fell short at the Oscars. Jake Gyllenhaal was snubbed. Rene Russo was snubbed. The film’s only nomination came for Gilroy’s screenplay.

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Jennifer Aniston’s campaign falls short

In case you were living under a rock, you may have noticed that Jennifer Aniston really, really wanted an Oscar nomination for Cake, a movie that hasn’t been seen by anyone outside of Los Angeles. However, Aniston missed the Best Actress boat. Her slot went to Marion Cotillard’s acclaimed performance in Two Days, One Night.


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5. Inherent Vice has an oddly strong showing

Even one nomination for Inherent Vice was going to be surprising, considering how Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest effort was divisive. But the nominations it did get were a little shocking. Anderson’s winding, confusing script adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel was nominated, but Josh Brolin’s hilarious supporting part wasn’t. Anderson took the slot that was reserved for Gillian Flynn's adaptation of her own Gone Girl.

The film was also nominated for its ‘70s costume design from Mark Bridges.


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Bennett Miller gets nominated for Best Director

Every year, the Academy seems to nominate at least one director who didn’t get nominated by the Director’s Guild. This year, that honor went to Bennett Miller, whose Foxcatcher had a strong showing, but wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Miller was also nominated for his first film, Capote.

By the way, Foxcatcher is Miller’s third film and his first to go without a Best Picture nomination.

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American Sniper shows up big

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper had a huge showing, scoring six nominations, including the big Film Editing one. However, Eastwood was not nominated for Best Director.

Bradley Cooper took Oyelowo’s slot in the Best Actor race. That means he has been nominated three years in a row.

Sniper, which is poised to have an even bigger weekend at the box office now, is up for Best Picture.

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8. Birdman’s Achilles heel is editing

Alejandro G. Inarritu's Birdman does have some editing. Despite the film’s extended take gimmick, the film doesn’t take place during a single period. The editing on the film had to make it look like there was no editing. That was pulled off so well, so it’s disappointing to see that the editing wasn’t nominated.

Since it didn’t get nominated for editing, the film’s chances at a Best Picture statue is really thin.

This should actually strengthen Boyhood or The Grand Budapest Hotel’s chances, since they both got Best Director, Best Picture and Best Editing nods.

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9. Ida scores a nomination outside of Best Foreign Language Oscar

While anyone hoping that the stars of Pawel Pawlikowski’s devastating Ida would be nominated knew it was a pipe dream, it was still nice to see that the film got a nomination outside of the Best Foreign Language Feature category.

Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski were nominated for their beautiful black and white, 1.33:1 cinematography on the film.

Seriously, if you have not seen Ida yet, please check it out. It’s on Netflix and is only 80 minutes long.

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Only Eight Best Picture Nominations

Since the Academy switched to five to 10 nominations for the Best Picture category, the Academy has always nominated nine movies. That changed today, as only eight were nominated. Foxcatcher surprisingly didn’t make the cut, but Selma did. Interstellar wasn’t there. Nightcrawler missed out. American Sniper and Whiplash snuck in. Still the movies we knew would be there - Birdman, Boyhood, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and The Grand Budapest Hotel - were there.