The 2015 Golden Globe nominations were announced Thursday morning and the Best Picture drama nominees included “Boyhood,” “Foxcatcher,” “The Imitation Game,” “Selma” and “The Theory of Everything,” while comedy nominees were “Birdman,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Into the Woods,” “Pride” and “St. Vincent.”
Heading into the season, many awards watchers speculated that “Unbroken” director Angelina Jolie would be the female filmmaker to watch, but instead it was “Selma” director Ava DuVernay who earned a Best Director nomination along with Wes Anderson (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”), David Fincher (“Gone Girl”), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Birdman”) and Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”).
Jennifer Aniston was a welcome nominee for “Cake” in the Best Actress Drama category where she was joined by Felicity Jones (“The Theory of Everything”), Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”), Reese Witherspoon (“Wild”) and Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”).
Meanwhile, Jake Gyllenhaal surprised the doubters by scoring a nomination for his jaw-dropping performance in “Nightcrawler.” He’ll face stiff competition in the Best Actor Drama category, which is stacked this year thanks to Steve Carell (“Foxcatche”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game”), David Oyelowo (“Selma”) and Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”).
The Best Actor and Actress nominees for Comedy/Musical offered some surprises. Frontrunner Michael Keaton (“Birdman”) will square off against Ralph Fiennes (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”), Bill Murray (“St. Vincent”), Joaquin Phoenix (“Inherent Vice”) and Christoph Waltz (“Big Eyes”).
“Big Eyes” also earned Amy Adams a nomination, and she’ll compete against Emily Blunt (“Into the Woods”), Helen Mirren (“The Hundred-Foot Journey”), Julianne Moore (“Maps to the Stars”) and Quvenzhane Wallis (“Annie”).
Another nice surprise was Jessica Chastain’s supporting actress nomination for “A Most Violent Year.” Her competition includes frontrunner Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”), awards veteran Meryl Streep (“Into the Woods”), and young ingenues Emma Stone (“Birdman”) and Keira Knightley (“The Imitation Game”).
The supporting actor category echoed the SAG nominations, with both voting bodies nominating Robert Duvall (“The Judge”), Ethan Hawke (“Boyhood”), Edward Norton (“Birdman”), Mark Ruffalo (“Foxcatcher”) and presumed frontrunner J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”).
On the TV side, the HFPA spread the love in the Drama category, nominating Showtime’s “The Affair,” PBS’ “Downton Abbey,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” CBS’ “The Good Wife” and Netflix’s original series “House of Cards.”
“The Affair” wasn’t the only newcomer welcomed by the HFPA with open arms, as other new shows that received nominations were the CW’s “Jane the Virgin,” Starz’s “The Missing” and Amazon’s “Transparent,” all of which drew acting nominations as well.
ABC’s “Modern Family” was snubbed by the HFPA, which instead nominated “Girls,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Silicon Valley,” “Transparent” and “Jane the Virgin” for Best Comedy Series.
HBO fared well in the TV Miniseries category, with “The Normal Heart” joining “True Detective” and “Olive Kitteridge,” as well as FX’s “Fargo” and Starz’s new series “The Missing.”
The Best Actor/TV Miniseries category is stacked between “True Detective” leads Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, “Fargo” stars Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton” and “The Normal Heart” hero Ruffalo.
Feature stars also led the way in the Best Actor drama category, led by Clive Owen (“The Knick”), Liev Schreiber (“Ray Donovan”), Kevin Spacey (“House of Cards”), James Spader (“The Blacklist”) and Dominic West (“The Affair”).
Showtime also had a very strong showing, received nine Golden Globe nominations — the most in network history. Showtime also drew the most series nominations of any network and the most series actor/actress nominations with eight, including lead and supporting.
Newcomer “The Affair” tied for the most nominations for a TV series this year with three nominations. It was the only first-year series to receive nominations for lead actor, actress and drama series, and the only new show to crack the drama series category.
In the Actress/TV Miniseries category, “Fargo” breakout Alison Tolman was nominated alongside acting legends Jessica Lange (“America Horror Story”) and Frances McDormand (“Olive Kitteridge”) as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Honourable Woman”) and Frances O’Connor (“The Missing”).
In the animated feature category, WB’s “The LEGO Movie” will compete against Disney’s “Big Hero 6” and DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”
Multiple popular musicians were nominated for Best Original Song, including Lana Del Rey (“Big Eyes”), John Legend and Common (“Selma”) and Lorde (“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”).
“Gone Girl” earned nominations for Best Screenplay (author Gillian Flynn) and Original Score (Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).
This year’s multiple nominees include Mark Ruffalo for “Foxcatcher” and “The Normal Heart,” Bill Murray for “St. Vincent” and “Olive Kitteridge” and Julianne Moore for “Still Alice” and David Cronenberg’s dark Hollywood satire “Maps the the Stars,” which is currently enjoying a stealth Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles.
The nominations were announced by Kate Beckinsale, Jeremy Piven, Paula Patton and Peter Krause.
More to come…