Alejandro González Iñárritu's BIRDMAN receives nine Academy Award nominations, tying with THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL for most Oscar noms

The nominees for the 87th annual Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars) were announced on Thursday, January 15, 2015 in Los Angeles, California by directors J.J. Abrams and Alfonso Cuarón, actor Chris Pine and Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and The Grand Budapest Hotel lead the films nominated this year with nine nominations each.

Left to right: Birdman scribes
González Iñárritu, Giacobone,
Dinelaris, Bó.

The nominations for Birdman consisted of acting nods for Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, and Emma Stone; a directing nomination for Alejandro González Iñárritu; a cinematography nomination for Emmanuel Lubezki; a Best Original Screenplay nomination for the writing team of González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bó; a sound editing nomination for Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock; a sound mixing nomination for Frank A. Montaño, Jon Taylor and Thomas G. Varga; and a nomination for Best Picture (for which González Iñárritu is a co-producer, totaling three 2015 Oscar nominations for the writer-director-producer).

Birdman cinematographer
Emmanuel Lubezki.

Montaño was also nominated in the Best Sound Mixing category opposite himself (see above, Birdman), for his work with Jon Taylor and David Lee on the Angelina Jolie film Unbroken.

In addition, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado (along with Wim Wenders and David Rosier) received a nomination for Best Documetary Feature for The Salt of the Earth. The Mexican film The Reaper (La Parka), directed by Nicaraguan director Gabriel Serra Argüello, received a nomination for Best Documentary Short. Argentina received a Best Foreign Film nomination for Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes), which was directed by Damián Szifrón.

And while Latinos were represented behind the scenes, this year's slate of Academy Awards nominees showed a decided lack of diversity in front of the camera and in the major awards. For the first time since 1998, there were no people of color nominated for the acting categories. Nor were there any female directors or screenwriters nominated (in spite of the pre-Oscar buzz generated of screenwriter Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl; and directors Angelina Jolie of Unbroken; and, especially Ava DuVernay of Selma).

Selma's snub by the Oscars (it received only two nominations– for Best Original Song and Best Picture) was especially stinging as the nominations were announced on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. (The film tells the story of King and his leadership of the 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in support of voting rights.)

The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), is scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The master of ceremonies will be Neil Patrick Harris. For more information, click here.