‘Birdman,’ ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ lead Oscar nominations

But Wes Anderson's old Europe caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel," which also won best comedy or musical at the Globes, has emerged as an unexpected awards heavyweight. It managed nine nominations without a single acting nod. Instead, it was cited for Anderson's meticulous craft, with nominations for directing, production design, makeup and screenplay.

Earning $59.1 million at the North American box office since its release in March 2014, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is also the biggest moneymaker among the best-picture entries — a shift from last year, in which two of the best-picture nominees, “Gravity” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” generated a combined $1.1 billion in revenue. This year, Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic "Interstellar," which earned more than $660 million, was restricted to five nominations in technical categories: visual effects, sound mixing, sound editing, score and production design.

The lack of box office big-hitters represented in the nominations could change this weekend, when "American Sniper" — which has earned six Oscar nods, including best actor for Bradley Cooper — is released nationwide. The military drama, directed by Clint Eastwood, opened in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas on Dec. 25. The movie, which has already earned $18 million at the box office, is based on the best-selling autobiography of Chris Kyle, the U.S. Navy SEAL who was killed at a gun range in 2013 by fellow veteran Eddie Ray Routh, who was suffering from PTSD.

The nominees for best actor aside from Cooper and Cumberbatch are: Steve Carell ("Foxcatcher"), Michael Keaton ("Birdman") and Eddie Redmayne ("The Theory of Everything"). David Oyelowo, who stars as Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma," was left out of Oscar recognition although he was nominated for more than a dozen other major acting awards for his performance.

Selma, a civil rights drama directed by Ava DuVernay, received a surge of critical attention and praise after its release Dec. 25 release and was nominated for several other awards, including best drama at the Golden Globes, but it received only one nomination on Thursday, for original song “Glory.”

This year’s nominations may have been announced on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, but the success of black artists last year — with "12 Years a Slave" bagging best picture, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay looks unlikely to be repeated in the forthcoming ceremony.

This year, all 20 nominated actors are white, and the best director category — which has included a woman four times — did not include Angelina Jolie, whose World War II survival tale, “Unbroken,” landed three nods, including a 12th nomination for cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has never won the award.

Marion Cotillard for the French-language "Two Days, One Night" was the surprise nominee for best actress. She was joined by Felicity Jones ("The Theory of Everything"), Julianne Moore ("Still Alice"), Rosamund Pike ("Gone Girl") and Reese Witherspoon ("Wild"). That left Jennifer Aniston's pained and grieving performance in "Cake" on the outside.

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), who vote on the winners, are 93 percent white and 70 percent male, with an average age of 60. The current president is Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first black woman and only the third woman to lead the Academy.

The eight best-picture nominees left out two films that might have added a dose of grit to the category: the Jake Gyllenhaal crime thriller "Nightcrawler,"  and the tragic wrestling drama "Foxcatcher." Bennett Miller, who directed “Foxcatcher,” was nominated for best director, along with Anderson, Linklater ("Boyhood"), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Birdman") and Morten Tyldum ("The Imitation Game").

The nominees for best foreign language film are: "Ida" (Poland), "Leviathan" (Russia), "Tangerines" (Estonia), "Timbuktu" (Mauritania) and "Wild Tales" (Argentina).

Best documentary nods went to "CitizenFour," “Finding Vivian Maier," “Last Days in Vietnam,” “The Salt of the Earth" and "Virunga." The last gave Netflix, the streaming video platform that began producing original films in 2013, its second Oscar nomination. The film it released about the Arab Spring, "The Square," was nominated for best documentary feature last year.

Al Jazeera and news wires