Awards Season 2015: Critics' Choice Movie Awards Nominations

Another week, another awards nomination announcement. Today saw the nominees annouced for the 20th Annoual Critics Choice Movie Awards, handed out by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. 

Here is a selection of their nominations:

Best Picture

Birdman

Boyhood

Gone Girl

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Nightcrawler

Selma

The Theory Of Everything

Unbroken

Whiplash

Best Director

Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Ava DuVernay (Selma)

David Fincher (Gone Girl)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)

Angelina Jolie (Unbroken)

Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

Best Actor

Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game)

Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)

Michael Keaton (Birdman)

David Oyelowo (Selma)

Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything)

Best Actress

Jennifer Aniston (Cake)

Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)

Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything)

Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)

Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

Best Supporting Actor

John Brolin (Inherent Vice)

Robert Duvall (The Judge)

Ethan Hawke (Boyhood)

Edward Norton (Birdman)

Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher)

J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)

Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)

Emma Stone (Birdman)

Meryl Streep (Into The Woods)

Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer)

A full list of nominees can be found here.

What is cool about the Critics' Choice Awards is that, aside from the usual cinema awards that most ceremonies give out, they also give out separate awards for genre films (eg. Best Action Movie,  Best Comedy, Best Sci-Fi/Horror) and also have Best Actor and Actress categories for some of these films as well.

There is some overlap this year with Michael Keaton and Ralph Fiennes both nominated for in the Best Actor and Best Actor In A Comedy categories for their roles in Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Birdman leads the way with a whopping 13 nominations with The Grand Budapest Hotel coming in second with 11. Boyhood got 8 while The Imitation Game got 6.

Some column inches have been given to the fact that, even in an expanded field of six nominees, Fiennes was nominated for Best Actor in the place of Steve Carell for Foxcatcher. However, given the Academy's notorious snobbery towards broadly comic roles, the chances of Fiennes getting an Oscar nod are slim- although not impossible. 

Those who follow these awards season blogs- and bless you if you do- will recognise a lot (and I mean A LOT) of the names and films. 

Awards season gets a bit quiet for the next few weeks, over the Christmas and New Years period, but the next big announcement will be the Producers' Guild Awards nominations on January 5th (always a good indicator of some of the Best Picture Oscar nominees) with the BAFTA nominations later that week (January 9th).

Tez