Show business satire Birdman and colourful caper The Grand Budapest Hotel led the Academy Award nominees yesterday with nine nods apiece, including best picture, in the quest for Hollywood’s top film prize.

The two Fox Searchlight films are joined in the best picture Oscar race by American Sniper, Boyhood, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything and Whiplash. The Academy chose only eight films to compete for its highest honour, although it can nominate up to 10.

British World War II biopic The Imitation Game garnered eight nominations, while Iraq war portrait American Sniper and coming- of-age tale Boyhood each earned six.

The best picture race promises to be competitive, with no clear frontrunner before the February 22 Oscars ceremony. Several of the top films have pushed cinematic boundaries with novel approaches to storytelling.

Birdman, starring Michael Keaton (left) and Edward Norton is a satire on show business.Birdman, starring Michael Keaton (left) and Edward Norton is a satire on show business.

Boyhood, which director Richard Linklater made over 12 years with the same actors, was considered a favourite after winning the Golden Globe for best drama last weekend.

Both Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel offer innovative visual spectacles and original characters. Birdman features Michael Keaton, a best actor nominee, as a washed-up former superhero actor battling to make a comeback by putting on his own Broadway play.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was an early favourite last year with critics, with its whimsical story of a hotel concierge caught up in a murder plot. It won nominations for its colourful production design, costumes and make-up, among others.

The Grand Budapest Hotel follows the adventures of a legendary concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and a lobby boy at a fictional hotel.The Grand Budapest Hotel follows the adventures of a legendary concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and a lobby boy at a fictional hotel.

If there was a latecomer to the race, it would be American Sniper from 84-year-old director Clint Eastwood, the real-life story of the most deadly sniper in American military history. Star Bradley Cooper was a surprise best actor nominee. Some of the other notable surprises were the nomination of Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard as a beleaguered worker in Two Days, One Night and the exclusion of Jennifer Aniston, who gave a critically acclaimed performance in Cake.

Julianne Moore is considered the favourite to win the best actress Oscar for her portrayal as a woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Another Golden Globe winner, Eddie Redmayne, is a strong contender for best actor for his role as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

The animation category may have served up the biggest snub of the day with the omission of The Lego Movie.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars, will reveal the winners in Los Angeles at a February 22 ceremony hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris.

Main Categories

Best picture
American Sniper; Birdman; Boyhood; The Grand Budapest Hotel; The Imitation Game; Selma; The Theory of Everything; Whiplash

Best actor
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher; Bradley Cooper, American Sniper; Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game; Michael Keaton, Birdman; Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

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

Best director
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman; Richard Linklater, Boyhood; Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher; Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel; Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Best supporting actor
Robert Duvall, The Judge; Ethan Hawke, Boyhood; Edward Norton, Birdman; Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher; J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best supporting actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood; Laura Dern, Wild; Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game; Emma Stone, Birdman; Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Best adapted screenplay
Jason Hall, American Sniper; Graham Moore, The Imitation Game; Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice; Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything; Damien Chazelle, Whiplash.

Best original screenplay
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Armando Bo, Birdman; Richard Linklater, Boyhood; E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher; Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness, The Grand Budapest Hotel; Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler

Best foreign language film
Ida (Poland); Leviathan (Russia); Tangerines (Estonia); Timbuktu (Mauritania); Wild Tales (Argentina)

Best animated film
Big Hero 6; The Boxtrolls; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Song of the Sea; The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

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