New Zealander Anthony McCarten has received a nomination in an Oscars lineup led by dark comedy Birdman and crime caper The Grand Budapest Hotel, news agency AFP reports.
Congrats to Best Picture Nominee The Theory of Everything! #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/QqZapNPLZZ
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 15, 2015
The Stephen Hawking biopic, The Theory of Everything, written and produced by New Zealander Anthony McCarten, picked up five nominations including best picture. McCarten is a finalist in the adapted screenplay category.
Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel have nine nominations each, while the final Hobbit movie, The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies, missed out on major nominations.
World War II code-breaking thriller The Imitation Game, picked up eight nominations. Clint Eastwood's American Sniper and coming-of-age drama Boyhood each earned six nods.
For best actor, Birdman star Michael Keaton and Britain's Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) are up against Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) and Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game).
The best actress race includes two former Oscar winners - Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night and Reese Witherspoon (Wild). They will compete against Globes winner Julianne Moore (Still Alice), along with two British actresses - Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl).
The makers of both Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Wes Anderson, are both in the race for best director along with Richard Linklater for Boyhood, Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher and Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game.
