SAG Awards give first real shape to Oscar race, leaves out 'Selma' and 'Into The Woods'

While critics have been giving out awards to the best films of 2014 for over two weeks already, the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations is the first real stop in the awards season. These are the first nominations to come from people who will eventually vote for the Oscars, after all.

Actors make up the largest branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. So while the SAG Awards don’t always line-up with the Oscars, they do provide a legitimate preview of how the Oscars will go.

The nominations do show that the industry loves Boyhood and Birdman as much as the critics - especially Birdman. Boyhood’s only nominations came for its cast as a whole and for Ethan Hawke’s supporting performance.

However, Birdman was shown a lot of love, which isn’t too surprising. The film is about actors, after all. Michael Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone were nominated individually and the cast as a whole was also nominated.

Oddly, Disney’s Into The Woods only scored one nomination - for Meryl Streep’s supporting role. The film didn’t get a cast nomination, which is surprising since it features an all-star group of players.

Selma was also left out, despite earning acclaim leading up to its release. The film stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. and he didn’t even get nominated for lead actor.

It’s stunning to see that Foxcatcher missed out on an overall cast nomination, but it meant that Wes Anderson’s delightful The Grand Budapest Hotel was included. Sadly, it looks like Ralph Fiennes will miss out on Best Actor.

Easily the most important aspect of the nominations was that it finally gave shape to the Best Actress race. Many of the nominees for Best Actor are not surprising and it’s widely expected that Keaton will (and should) finally get his due from awards committees, but the Best Actress field has been wide open until now.

Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Reese Witherspoon (Wild) have been the locks, while Felicity Jones has also earned buzz for The Theory of Everything. But the last slot could have either gone to Hillary Swank for her devastating performance in The Homesman or Jennifer Aniston in Cake. Aniston won out though. Jessica Chastain was also shut out, despite performances in A Most Violent Year, Interstellar and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.

Last year, American Hustle won the overall cast award, but failed to win anything at the Oscars. However, SAG-AFTRA did correctly pick all four members of the winning Oscar actor class, so it is still an important ceremony to watch.

The awards are handed out on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015.

image courtesy of Walter McBride/INFphoto.com