Two extravagant comedies, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, dominated nominations for the 87th annual Academy Awards with nine nods each, while Boyhood remained the widely acknowledged front-runner.
The three films were nominated for best picture Thursday along with Whiplash, The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, American Sniper and Selma. The eight films, mostly more modest movies dwarfed by Hollywood's stampede of bigger blockbusters at the box office, gave the Oscars a classy if not particularly high-wattage batch of nominees.
In Hollywood's ever-expanding industrial complex of awards season, the year's front-runners -- Richard Linklater's coming of age epic Boyhood (six nominations) and Alejandro Gonazalez Inarritu's elegantly shot backstage romp Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) -- haven't been dislodged from their lofty perches, steadily accumulating hardware.
"This is what everyone waits for. This is the last one, unless there's another one that I don't know about," said Michael Keaton, who was rewarded with a best actor nod for his performance as a washed-up star trying to mount a serious Broadway play in Birdman. He added: "I don't care how much people tell you: 'It's gonna happen.' When it happens, you're thrilled."
The time-elapse Boyhood earned Linklater nominations for best director and screenplay, as well as supporting nods for Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke. The film, 12 years in the making, landed the latest in a string of awards Sunday at the Golden Globes, taking best drama.
But there were other films -- The Grand Budapest Hotel, American Sniper and The Imitation Game -- that came away big winners Thursday, just as others such as Selma failed to break through.
World War II code-breaker thriller The Imitation Game, about pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, captured eight nominations, including best actor for Benedict Cumberbatch. The film's distributor, the Weinstein Co., has previously shepherded a British period film (The King's Speech) all the way to best picture.
"I am knocked for six by this," Cumberbatch said of his first Oscar nod. "To ring my parents who are both actors and tell them that their only son has been nominated for an Oscar is one of the proudest moments of my life."
Wes Anderson's old Europe caper The Grand Budapest Hotel, which also won best comedy or musical at the Globes, has emerged as the most unexpected awards heavyweight. It managed nine nominations without a single acting nod and was instead repeatedly cited for Anderson's meticulous craft in directing, production design, makeup and screenplay.
With $59.1 million at the North American box office (opening all the way back in March), The Grand Budapest Hotel is also the biggest money-making best-picture entry.
That, however, is likely to change soon after American Sniper expands nationwide this weekend. Clint Eastwood's Navy SEAL drama -- one of the season's last entries -- did especially well Thursday, landing six nods including best actor for Bradley Cooper.
Steve Carell (Foxcatcher) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) rounded out the best-actor category. Redmayne, the freckled British actor who stars as Stephen Hawking in the film, said by phone from Los Angeles that he was asleep before he received the news.
"I was in a deep, dark sleep," Redmayne said. "I was in a dazed state. I was half undressed and stumbled to the door. I found my manager there brandishing a phone with a lot of screams coming out of it."
David Oyelowo, who stars as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, was left out of best actor. Ava DuVernay's civil-rights drama, at one point considered a major contender, faded even after its late debut. Selma, which has been nagged by criticism over its portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson, managed just two nominations. (The second was for best song.)
The poor showing of Selma was striking because it followed an Academy Awards led by best-picture winner 12 Years a Slave and much chest-thumping about Hollywood's thawing close-mindedness.
Marion Cotillard for the French-language Two Days, One Night was the surprise nominee for best actress. She was joined by Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Reese Witherspoon (Wild). Those picks left Jennifer Aniston's pained and grieving performance in Cake on the outside.
The eight best-picture nominees left out two wild cards that might have added a dose of darkness to the category: the creepy Jake Gyllenhaal thriller Nightcrawler and the tragic wrestling drama Foxcatcher. In the three previous years since the category was expanded (anywhere between five and 10 film may be nominated), there were nine movies contending for best picture.
Big box-office hits were also scarce. Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic Interstellar was restricted to five nominations in technical categories: visual effects, sound mixing, sound editing, score and production design. David Fincher's popular and well-reviewed Gone Girl managed only Pike's nomination.
This year's show Feb. 22 will be hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, a veteran of the Tony Awards.
Information for this article was contributed by Lindsey Bahr and Derrik J. Lang of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/16/2015