The 85th Academy Awards Nominees! (How Did Our Predictions Fare?)

Andrew: Hello readers! All week we've been posting our predictions for who we think will be nominated for this year's 85th Academy Awards, and this morning the awesome duo of Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane announced those nominees. 

So...how did our predictions fare? Listed below are all of the nominees that were announced today - nominees that are in italics are the movies that we got CORRECT. (And a reminder that we did not predict the short film categories, so those will not be posted below.)

BEST PICTURE
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo

BEST DIRECTOR
David O. Russell
Ang Lee
Steven Spielberg
Michael Haneke
Benh Zeitlin


BEST LEAD ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis
Denzel Washington
Hugh Jackman
Bradley Cooper
Joaquin Phoenix

BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Naomi Watts
Jessica Chastain
Jennifer Lawrence
Emmanuelle Riva
Quvenzhane Wallis

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Robert De Niro
Alan Arkin
Tommy Lee Jones

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sally Field
Anne Hathaway
Jackie Weaver
Helen Hunt
Amy Adams

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Flight
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Life of Pi

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Anna Karenina
Lincoln
Skyfall
Life of Pi
Django Unchained

BEST FILM EDITING
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Les Miserables
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Hitchcock

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Before My Time" - Chasing Ice
"Pi's Lullaby" - Life of Pi
"Suddenly" - Les Miserables
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" - Ted
"Skyfall" - Skyfall

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Frankenweenie
The Pirates: Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave

BEST FOREIGN FEATURE FILM
Amour
No
War Witch
A Royal Affair
Kon-Tiki

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
Searching for Sugar Man
The Invisible War

BEST SOUND EDITING
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

BEST SOUND MIXING
Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman

So those are the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards that will be presented on Sunday, February 24th! We didn't end up winning the contest we were in, only getting 63 correct out of 107 predictions, but at least we weren't alone in missing a lot of the directors. We failed miserably on the sound mixing/editing, as well as Original Song, but we feel we did pretty well in the acting categories.

Some rapid reactions to the nominees though:

 - We're blown away that Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino were all shut out of the director category. That doesn't bode well for their films' chances at winning Best Picture. 

- We're even MORE surprised by all the love for Beasts of the Southern Wild, particularly Benh Zeitlin getting a Best Director nod over the three mentioned above, and Quvenzhane Wallis getting nominated for Best Actress. We discussed our thoughts on her Oscar chances and whether we thought she should get consideration in our review, which you can read here.

- I'm personally excited that Silver Linings Playbook got so many nominations. Here's to holding out hope it might be able to steal Best Picture away from the Goliath that is Lincoln.

- Yes, The Dark Knight Rises may not have been the universally loved masterpiece that The Dark Knight was, but we're still shocked it got completely shut out. Not even a nod for Hans Zimmer's score or Wally Pfister's cinematography? Wow.

- We're also a little bummed that Skyfall didn't sneak into any acting categories or the Best Picture race, but we ARE glad that Roger Deakins and Thomas Newman got credit for their fantastic cinematography and score, respectively.

- Hey, we nailed the Joaquin Phoenix nomination, didn't we?

So there we are! What did you all think of the nominations, dear readers? We're interesting to hear who you're happy got nominated and vice versa. And keep your eyes out on Two Tickets For... in the coming month as we start to break down each of the major categories and predict who we think will WIN!