González Iñárritu and Lubezki Repeat as Academy Award Nominees As THE REVENANT Pick Up Twelve Nods While No Actors of Color Receive Nominations For The Second Year in a Row

The nominees for the 88th annual Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars) were announced on Thursday, January 15, 2015 in Los Angeles, California by directors Ang Lee and Guillermo Del Toro, actor John Krasinski and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs. The Revenant lead the films nominated this year with twelve nominations, including Best Picture.

Alejandro González Iñárritu is nominated for two Oscars– one for Best Director and one as one of the producers of Best Picture nominee The Revenant. Should he win as Best Director, last year's Oscar winner for Birdman would join John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz as a Oscar winner for Best Director in two consecutive years.

2016 Academy Award nominees
(and 2015 Oscar winners)
Alejandro González Iñárritu
and Emmanuel Lubezki.

Also nominated for an Academy Award for the film The Revenant are cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (also an Oscar winner last year for his work on Birdman and the year before that for his work on Gravity), Martín Hernández (who, with Lon Bender, is nominated for Best Sound Editing), and Frank A. Montaño (who, with Jon Taylor, Randy Thom, and Chris Duesterdisk, is nominated for Best Sound Mixing).

Jonas Rivera and Pete Docter picked up a Best Animated Feature Film nomination for the Inside Out. They will compete against Alê Abreu, for his film Boy & The World (O Menino e o Mundo). Ciro Guerra picked up a Best Foreign-Language Film nomination for Colombia's entry Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente).

2016 Academy Award
nominee Paco Delgado.

Paco Delgado picked up a Best Costume Design nomination for The Danish Girl. Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala picked up a nod for Best Animated Short Film for the Chilean film Bear Story. Cartel Land (directed by Matthew Heineman), which deals with the Mexican drug war, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.

For the second year in a row, there were no nominees of color this year in the acting categories, with some questioning why actors such as Michael B. Jordan (Creed), Idris Elba and Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation) or Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodríguez (Tangerine) were overlooked. Also, former Oscar nominee Will Smith (Concussion) and Oscar winner Benicio del Toro (Sicario) were also snubbed. In addition, in the realm of direction, Ryan Coogler (Creed), Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) and F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) did not make the final cut. For more information, click here or here.

The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will take place on Sunday, February 28, 2016 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. It will be hosted by Chris Rock and televised in the United States by ABC. For more information, click here.