Oscar nomination snubs include Affleck, Bigelow and 'Skyfall'

Oscar nomination snubs include Affleck, Bigelow and ‘Skyfall’

By Steven Zeitchik

Jan. 10, 2013 12 AM PT

Oscar nominations were rife with snubs Thursday morning, particularly in the director category, where several favorites were absent from the list.

Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow, considered virtual locks for their work on their fact-based thrillers “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” were both shut out of the director category, as was “Les Miserables’” Tom Hooper. All three filmmakers had been nominated for Directors Guild awards, usually an excellent predictor of the Oscar category.

Oscar directing nominations instead went to upstart Benh Zeitlin (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”) and Austrian Michael Haneke (“Amour”), as well as favorites Ang Lee (“Life of Pi”), Steven Spielberg (“Lincoln”) and David O. Russell (“Silver Linings Playbook”).

PHOTOS: Oscar snubs & surprises

The category of best picture featured a few surprises as well; “Beasts,” “Django Unchained” and “Amour,” all on the bubble coming into the morning, were nominated. But the James Bond megahit “Skyfall,” a favorite among many pundits, did not land on the list.

It was a surprisingly good day for Fox Searchlight’s “Beasts,” a movie made independently for under $2 million that did not even have a distributor a year ago at this time. The movie had landed four nominations -- best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay and best actress, the last one for nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, the youngest best-actress nominee in Oscar history.

On the other hand, the best actress category saw snubs in the person of Marion Cottilard, who had been thought a strong contender for her role as a struggling amputee in the French-language “Rust and Bone.” Also omitted was Helen Mirren, who played Alma Reville in the period-Hollywood film “Hitchcock.” Maggie Smith, the British legend who had been thought a contender for her part in “The Exotic Marigold Hotel,” was also left off the list, as was Nicole Kidman, who had been nominated for a Golden Globe for her part in the polarizing “The Paperboy.”

LIST: Complete list of nominees

On the actor side, the academy chose not to nominate lead actor John Hawkes for his turn as a severely disabled man seeking companionship in “The Sessions,” or supporting actor Leonardo DiCaprio for his role as a cruel slave owner in “Django Unchained.” Matthew McConaughey, thought to be a supporting contender for his role as a dancer in “Magic Mike,” didn’t make the cut either. Richard Gere is still seeking his first Oscar nomination after his well-regarded turn in the financial drama “Arbitrage” was overlooked by the academy.

The animated category also saw some significant deviations from pundits’ forecasts, with the little-considered “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” nabbing a spot ahead of Golden Globe nominees “Rise of the Guardians and “Hotel Transylvania.”

And while the difficult drama “Amour” made it in both the best picture and foreign-language category, the academy’s foreign-language committee raised a few eyebrows when it opted not to nominate “The Intouchables.” The French dramatic comedy has grossed more than $400 million worldwide and is by far the most widely known of this year’s foreign submissions.

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