BEST PICTURE
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Should have won: Selma
Not even nominated: Interstellar
Whether it was a bad campaign, a late release, or simply willful ignorance, Selma ended up with just two nominations: Best Picture and Best Original Song. It won the latter, but had no chance of winning the former, which looks dumber with each passing year. Despite career highs from Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater, Ava Duvernay’s biopic of Martin Luther King, Jr. is the best of this year. And by far the best of the Civil Rights-era films from the early 2010s (which ended with the embarrassing but financially successful Hidden Figures). It’s more than just a movie for history teachers to throw on after finals. It’s an urgent film that sadly has remained relevant, especially as minorities are under threat every single day and anyone who protests anything seems to be met with a baton and boot heel.
But strangely the most fondly remembered movie from 2014 was one even I wasn’t that keen on at the time. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar has been memed to death, but also eventually claimed as a messy masterpiece (see also: Cloud Atlas), a mind-bending, time-jumping piece of sci-fi that cares more about the heart than the brain. Its nakedly emotional third act didn’t work for me (and many others) then, but now it seems quite impressive.
BEST DIRECTING
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
Should have won: Richard Linklater
Not even nominated: Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin
I’m certainly no Birdman hater, but its achievement looks less impressive and more self-indulgent as time goes on. But Linklater, who filmed Boyhood over more than a decade, delivered a film that’s at once wholly natural, yet a jaw-dropping achievement at the same time. While he may be in awards contention again soon for this two upcoming period pieces, this was his moment, and the Oscars passed him over for a guy who simply doesn’t have the juice.
Glazer eventually found himself nominated for The Zone of Interest, his greatest film, but he had a case to be nominated here for his deeply unsettling alien invasion flick. Under the Skin is visually arresting and haunting, and far more impressive than the milquetoast Bennett Miller’s work on Foxcatcher (the only time since the expansion a director received a nod for a movie that wasn’t up for Best Picture).
BEST ACTOR
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Should have won: Michael Keaton
Not even nominated: Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Here’s where Birdman – which picked up four awards – should have triumphed. But dumbass voters went once again for a man “transforming himself into” a well-known celebrity. Their obsession with mimicry in this category is a big head-scratcher, especially when they had a chance to honor Keaton, who puts all the ups and downs of his career into a blistering performance.
In fact, he was the only person in this category not playing a real person. That’s especially absurd when you had Ralph Fiennes delivering comedic perfection in a movie that was otherwise well-regarded by the Academy.
BEST ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Should have won: Rosamund Pike
Not even nominated: Essie Davis, The Babadook
Julianne Moore is quite good in Still Alice, but it’s one of those movies pretty much everyone has forgotten by now. (And it’s a makeup award for Far from Heaven.) But Rosamund Pike is absolutely tremendous in Gone Girl, a relentless and adaptable sociopath out for revenge. That she was the film’s only nomination is also cause for retaliation.
In a somewhat weak year for this category, I’d have booted Felicity Jones and taken Essie Davis as the frustrated, frightened mother in The Babadook. She’s no mere scream queen, giving a performance that makes you feel her terror at a situation she can’t comprehend and an annoying kid she can’t control.
