The Academy Award nominees were announced this morning, and it turned out to be a surprisingly big year for science fiction and fantasy films -- especially if you're talking about Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian or Ex Machina.
Mad Max: Fury Road came out ahead of most of the competition with a total of nine nominations: only The Revenant scored more with 12 nods. Fury Road now has a nomination for Best Picture, Best Director for George Miller, a Film Editing nod and nominations for Production Design, Visual Effects, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
However, Mad Max: Fury Road has a worthy opponent with Ridley Scott's The Martian, which also scored some serious nominations. Based on a book by Andy Weir, The Martian follows a man trapped on the surface of Mars. Not only is the movie also up for Best Picture, but actor Matt Damon could win for Best Actor. The Martian also got nods for Production Design, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
Of course, the Academy chose not to ignore the biggest movie of the year - and of all time, at least in North America - Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The latest Star Wars installment earned nominations for Film Editing, Original Score, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, comes from Ex Machina, a British sci-fi film about a man who gets hired to apply the Turing test to an adroid with artificial intelligence. Its real story, though, is about the little indie movie that could: it scored a nomination for Best Original Screenplay and Visual Effects.
Disney's live action adaptation of Cinderella also got a nomination for Costume Design.
In the Best Animated Short Film category, We Can't Live Without Cosmos scored a nomination: the film follows two cosmonauts in training in an effort to achieve their dreams of reaching the stars.
The only question left now is who will the Oscars go to? Fans will have to tune in to find out when the 88th Academy Awards, hosted by Chris Rock, air on February 28 on ABC.
