Pioneer-era drama The Revenant led the Oscar nominations yesterday with 12 nods, including best picture, but actors of colour were shut out for the second straight year.
The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road will vie with The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, Room and Spotlight for best picture, the highest honour in the film industry.
The Revenant also landed nominations for lead actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, supporting actor for Tom Hardy and director for Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Inarritu, whose Birdman won the best picture Oscar a year ago.
“We gave it our all on this film, and this appreciation from the Academy means a lot to me and my colleagues who made it possible,” Inarritu said in a statement. “Champagne and Mezcal will run tonight!”
The Oscars, voted on by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, can have up to 10 best picture nominees, but voters selected just eight.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens and hip-hop movie Straight Outta Compton were among those not making the cut.
Will Smith, who stars in football head-injury drama Concussion, and Idris Elba from Beasts of No Nation were among the black actors who were not nominated.
“In a year with an extraordinary number of great performances by black actors that were embraced by audiences and embraced by critics, for them all to get ignored is tragic,” said Reginald Hudlin, who will produce the February 28 ceremony where the winners are announced.
Comedian Chris Rock will host it.
The 2015 hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was quickly revived on Twitter yesterday.
“Action needs to be taken to make sure that the industry as a whole is more inclusive with the hiring and the mentoring and the promoting of diverse product and diversity among filmmakers,” said Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is black.
DiCaprio, who has yet to win an Oscar, will compete with Bryan Cranston in Hollywood blacklist tale Trumbo, Matt Damon in space adventure The Martian, Michael Fassbender as technology visionary Steve Jobs and Eddie Redmayne as transgender artist Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl.
In the best actress category, previous Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lawrence return to the race this year.
Blanchett was nominated for her role in lesbian romance Carol, and Lawrence for playing the Miracle Mop inventor in Joy.
They will compete against rising star Brie Larson for her role in psychological thriller Room, Charlotte Rampling for British drama 45 Years and Saoirse Ronan for Irish immigrant tale Brooklyn.
Oscar voters, who usually favour artistic fare over blockbuster films for the coveted best picture prize, this year put three big budget films in the race: The Revenant and The Martian, which earned seven nods, and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Director Inarritu will face off with George Miller for Mad Max; Adam McKay for The Big Short, about the 2007 US financial collapse; Lenny Abrahamson for Room; and Tom McCarthy for Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s probe into child abuse by Catholic priests.
Veteran filmmaker Ridley Scott, who won a Golden Globe last week for directing The Martian, was snubbed in that category for the Oscars.