World Gone "Mad": Australians Totally Dominated The 2016 Oscar Nominations

Fang it, schlangers!

Aussies had much to celebrate with the Oscar nominations announcement last night, following the mighty haul of the idiosyncratically ocker Mad Max: Fury Road.

(Let us just direct your attention to this article from back in September: Could “Mad Max: Fury Road” Be A Potential Best Picture Oscar Winner?)

Max and Imperator Furiosa drove away with 10 nominations; the second-largest amount of any movie.

The Revenant, or as I’ve taken to calling it, The R-eh-venant, had the most with 12.

Mad Max: Fury Road will compete in the Best Picture race against the aforementioned Revenant, The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, Room and Spotlight.

George Miller received his first career Best Director nomination, though the good Doctor has won previously (for Best Animated Feature, with Happy Feet). He also received nominations for writing and producing past Best Picture nominee Babe and for also writing Lorenzo’s Oil.

Miller’s partner, Margaret Sixel, received her first ever nomination for editing the insanity of Fury Road.

Alongside the 12 Australians who helped bring the bizarre Mad Max sequel to life was Cate Blanchett, receiving her seventh career nomination for Carol. She’s competing for Best Actress; it would be her third Oscar win should she unseat the presumed favourite, Brie Larson (for Room).

As expected, there were numerous surprises and snubs in the nominations announcement. Ridley Scott, hoping for his first ever Academy Award, was left off the Best Director ballot; Star Wars: The Force Awakens was shunned from the Best Picture field (despite show producers no doubt hoping a nomination would bring millions more viewers to the broadcast); and Wiz Khalifa’s hit “See You Again” from Furious 7 was denied a Best Song nomination despite being the field fave.

Most disappointingly, 2016 marks the second consecutive year in which the acting nominees were entirely white; this, despite contenders such as Michael B. Jordan (Creed), Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) and Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation) having long been considered possibilities.

On the diversity front, we at least have this to celebrate: there were four female screenwriters nominated in the Screenplay categories – a significant improvement from last year’s number (which was zero, by the way).

Given that, as recently as 2013, 88 per cent of films were written by men, this is at least a step in the right direction.

Check out the whole list of nominees here.

It’s still a wide open field for Best Picture, so who knows if Max will be able to make it to the finish line. We just hope the Doof Warrior appers at the ceremony.

The 88th Academy Awards, hosted by Chris Rock, will air in Australia the morning of February 29, 2016.