Oscar Nominations Snub The Year's Top-Grossing Movies

Marvel's The Avengers

was nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects, but shut out of all other categories when the Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. Other major genre films were ignored as well, although the latest James Bond film fared pretty well. The biggest surprise is arguably that The Dark Knight Rises didn't garner a single nomination, even in the technical categories that tend to favor big-budget tentpole films. Many observers had expected Christopher Nolan's final Batman film to get at least a couple of nominations, possibly even for Best Picture, especially after the omission of The Dark Knight in 2008 led to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reforming the nomination process. The Hunger Games was also completely shut out of the nomination process; while the film wasn't widely expected to score in the "big" categories, it's surprising to see that a film that relied so heavily on archery didn't at least earn a visual effects or sound mixing nomination.

The fact that The Avengers was nominated for a visual effects Oscar (along with Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, Life of Pi and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) while The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man were not may be an indication of what the Academy voters were looking for this year; while the ignored films featured primarily practical effects, The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntman, The Hobbit and Prometheus all relied heavily on computer-generated effects. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey also drew nominations for Production Design and Makeup and Hairstyling. Peter Jackson's last trip to Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, scored a Best Picture win. Christopher Nolan's previous Batman film, The Dark Knight, earned a Best Supporting Actor win for Heath Ledger and nominations for Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. Skyfall, Sam Mendes's James Bond film, was nominated five times, including Sound Editing, Music, Original Song, Cinematography and Sound Mixing. Quentin Tarantino failed to land a Best Director nomination, but his Django Unchained earned nominations for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound Editing and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Christoph Waltz. Ben Affleck was similarly shut out of a director nomination even though his film Argo was nominated in eight other categories. Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games and Anne Hathaway of The Dark Knight Rises may still earn a win; the two were nominated in the Best Actress and Best Actress in a Supporting Role category, respectively, for The Silver Linings Playbook and Les Miserables. X-Men staple Hugh Jackman was nominated, too, also for Les Miserables. For a full list of nominees, check out The Oscars website. The 85th Academy Awards will be presented on February 24 at 7 p.m. EST.