2015 Oscar Winners: Meryl Streep Breaks 2 Records

For instance, there were quite a few first-time nominees in the acting and directing categories. In fact, nine of the nominated actors and three of the nominated directors are Oscar newcomers.

Here’s the list in the acting categories:

Eddie Redmayne.
Michael Keaton.
Steve Carell.
Benedict Cumberbatch.
Felicity Jones.
Rosamund Pike.
J.K. Simmons.
Emma Stone.
Patricia Arquette.

The three directors are:

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Morten Tyldum.
Richard Linklater.
Wes Anderson.

Oscar 2015 comebacks

Oscar 2015 also marked the Academy Awards’ “comeback” of several performers and directors last nominated years ago.

Marion Cotillard and Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress Oscars for, respectively, Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose (2007) and James Mangold’s Walk the Line (2005). They’re back this year.

Both Robert Duvall and Edward Norton were last nominated in early 1999. Duvall as Best Supporting Actor for Steven Zaillian’s A Civil Action; Norton as Best Actor for Tony Kaye’s American History X.

Ethan Hawke, Keira Knightley, and Laura Dern had one previous Oscar nomination. Hawke for Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day (2001); Knightley for Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005); Dern for Martha Coolidge’s Rambling Rose, which came out way back in 1991.

Best Actress winner Julianne Moore had been shortlisted for four previous Academy Awards, the last times (two nods) back in 2002:

Best Supporting Actress for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997).
Best Actress for Neil Jordan’s The End of the Affair (1999).
Even though she had more screen time than eventual Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman, Best Supporting Actress for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours (2002).
Best Actress for Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002).

This year, Moore won Best Actress for Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Sill Alice, playing a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Hunter Parrish, Alec Baldwin, and Best Supporting Actress César Award winner Kristen Stewart (for Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria) are her co-stars.

African Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees

For Oscar 2015, two countries were shortlisted for the first time in the Best Foreign Language Film category: Estonia and Mauritania. The latter is one of the precious few African nations to have had one of its (co-)productions – usually with France – nominated.

Estonia is in for Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines. Mauritania is in for Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu, winner of the French Academy’s Best Film César Award two nights ago.

In case you’re wondering, African countries officially represented in the Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Language Film category – though, in some instances, the films’ “Africanness” is debatable – are the following (in chronological order):

Costa-Gavras’ Z (Algeria, 1969).
Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Black and White in Color / La victoire en chantant (Ivory Coast, 1976).
Ettore Scola’s Le Bal (Algeria, 1983).
Rachid Bouchareb’s Dust of Life / Poussières de vie (Algeria, 1995).
Darrell Roodt’s Yesterday (South Africa, 2004).
Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi (South Africa, 2005).
Rachid Bouchareb’s Days of Glory / Indigènes (Algeria, 2006).
Rachid Bouchareb’s Outside the Law / Hors la loi (Algeria, 2010).
Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu (Mauritania, 2014).

The Franco-Algerian Z, starring a mostly French cast and set in Costa-Gavras’ native Greece, is the only “African” film to have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It lost to John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy in that category, but won as Best Foreign Language Film.

The other two African co-productions that have won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar are Black and White in Color and Tsotsi.

To date, the only Oscar-nominated African co-productions without French financing are the two South African entries: Yesterday and Tsotsi.

The only non-white, African-born director of a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nominee hailing from an African country is Mauretanian Abderrahmane Sissako.

In case you’re wondering, Rachid Bouchareb is a Parisian.

Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez at the Oscar 2015 ceremony (with Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux behind them).

Meryl Streep breaks two more Oscar records

Oscar 2015: Meryl Streep has broken two more Oscar records in the acting categories.

After getting her nineteenth Academy Award nomination – as Best Supporting Actress for Rob Marshall’s musical Into the Woods – she has surpassed the previous record held by, ahem, Meryl Streep.

Streep’s other broken Oscar record was that of biggest loser in the acting categories: 16 times. Needless to say, the previous record-holder was Streep herself.

The 2015 Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner was Patricia Arquette for Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.

For the record, Meryl Streep has already won three Academy Awards:

Best Supporting Actress for Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
Best Actress for Alan J. Pakula’s Sophie’s Choice (1982).
Best Actress for Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady (2011).

Streep’s first Oscar nomination, in the Best Supporting Actress category, was for Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). Her previous nomination, in the Best Actress category, was for John Wells’ August: Osage County (2013).

Check out: “Meryl Streep Oscar Nominations Record Broken (Again)” and “Meryl Streep Has Lost the Oscar 14 Times.”

More on Meryl Streep

Currently with four Best Supporting Actress nominations, Meryl Streep has tied in that category with the seven actresses listed below.*

Note: List in chronological order, from the year of each actress’ first nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category. (Bear in mind that Geraldine Page, Maggie Smith, and Amy Adams have also earned nominations in the Best Actress category.)

Agnes Moorehead for Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942. Tay Garnett’s Mrs. Parkington, 1944. Jean Negulesco’s Johnny Belinda, 1948. Robert Aldrich’s Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, 1964.
Ethel Barrymore for Clifford Odets’ None But the Lonely Heart, 1944. Robert Siodmak’s The Spiral Staircase, 1946. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case, 1947. Elia Kazan’s Pinky, 1949.

Ethel Barrymore won for None But the Lonely Heart.

Lee Grant for William Wyler’s Detective Story, 1951. Hal Ashby’s The Landlord, 1970. Hal Ashby’s Shampoo, 1975. Stuart Rosenberg’s Voyage of the Damned (1976).

Lee Grant won for Shampoo.

Geraldine Page for John Farrow’s Hondo, 1953. Francis Ford Coppola’s You’re a Big Boy Now, 1966. Martin Ritt’s Pete ‘n’ Tillie, 1972. Stuart Rosenberg’s The Pope of Greenwich Village, 1984.
Maureen Stapleton for Vincent J. Donehue’s Lonelyhearts, 1958. George Seaton’s Airport, 1970. Woody Allen’s Interiors, 1978. Warren Beatty’s Reds, 1981.

Maureen Stapleton won for Reds.

Maggie Smith for Stuart Burge’s Othello, 1965. Herbert Ross’ California Suite, 1978. James Ivory’s A Room with a View, 1986. Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, 2001.

Maggie Smith won for California Suite.

Amy Adams for Phil Morrison’s Junebug, 2005. John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, 2008. David O. Russell’s The Fighter, 2010. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, 2012.

An aside: touted as an early Oscar 2015 favorite, Amy Adams’ performance in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes was bypassed for both the Best Actress Oscar and the SAG Awards.

Also: In an earlier draft of this article, Gladys Cooper was erroneously listed as a four-time Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee. She was actually shortlisted for three movies. They are the following:

Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager, 1942.
Henry King’s The Song of Bernadette, 1943.
George Cukor’s My Fair Lady, 1964.

Record-holder Thelma Ritter

The record-holder in the supporting categories remains Thelma Ritter, with six nominations – and zero wins. (I should add that no actress or actor has been shortlisted five times.)

The scene-stealing Ritter was shortlisted for:

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950), supporting Best Actress nominees Bette Davis and Anne Baxter.
Mitchell Leisen’s The Mating Season (1951), with Gene Tierney, John Lund, and Miriam Hopkins.
Walter Lang’s With a Song in My Heart (1952), supporting Best Actress nominee Susan Hayward and Rory Calhoun.
Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953), with Richard Widmark and Jean Peters.
Michael Gordon’s Pillow Talk (1959), supporting Best Actress nominee Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), as Best Actor nominee Burt Lancaster’s mother.

Julie Andrews: Surprise Oscar 2015 presenter.

Oscar 2015 presenters

Outraged that Selma‘s Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo failed to be shortlisted for Oscar 2015, a number of people out there seemingly would like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to institute a quota system to ensure that U.S. ethnic minorities get nominated each year.

Whether you find that a phenomenally brilliant or a monumentally idiotic idea, perhaps it’s no coincidence that Academy producers selected a significant contingent of black Oscar 2015 presenters. These ranged from David Oyelowo himself and 12 Years a Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor (both of whom happen to be British) to actresses Viola Davis (The Help) and Oprah Winfrey (The Butler and The Color Purple).

See, major Hollywood movies are made with international audiences in mind. That’s where most of the money is.

But the televised Academy Awards ceremony continues to be presented with an American audience in mind. That’s where most of the money is.

Avatar actress Zoe Saldana and cult-classic-in-the-making The Boy Next Door star Jennifer Lopez were presenters as well, which should take care of those with Spanish last names. And several of the presenters surely have at least some Native American background.

But there were no East Asian, Arab, South Asian, or Pacific Islander Oscar 2015 presenters. That is, unless you consider Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett as Pacific Islanders.

Anyhow, here’s the list of Oscar 2015 presenters:

Julie Andrews.
Marion Cotillard.
Chris Evans.
Meryl Streep.
Josh Hutcherson.
Naomi Watts.
Channing Tatum.
Chris Pine.
Ansel Elgort.
Nicole Kidman.
Chris Pratt.
Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Reese Witherspoon.
Scarlett Johansson.
Jennifer Aniston.
Miles Teller.
Jason Bateman.
Jessica Chastain.
Ben Affleck.
Viola Davis.
Lupita Nyong’o.
Shirley MacLaine.
Chloë Grace Moretz.
Cate Blanchett.
Liam Neeson.
Idris Elba.
Benedict Cumberbatch.
David Oyelowo.
Kerry Washington.
Dwayne Johnson.
Felicity Jones.
Dakota Johnson.
Sienna Miller.
Margot Robbie.
Octavia Spencer.
John Travolta.
Terrence Howard.
Jared Leto.
Jennifer Lopez.
Matthew McConaughey.
Eddie Murphy.
Gwyneth Paltrow.
Zoe Saldana.
Oprah Winfrey.
Kevin Hart.

Neil Patrick Harris in his underwear.

Oscar performers

Neil Patrick Harris, Oscar 2015 opening segment “Moving Pictures.”
Tim McGraw, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.
Adam Levine and Maroon 5, “Lost Stars” from Begin Again.
John Legend and Common, “Glory” from Selma.
Tegan and Sara & The Lonely Island, “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie.
Rita Ora, “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights.
Anna Kendrick.
Lady Gaga, The Sound of Music homage.
Jack Black.
Jennifer Hudson.

Best Actress winner Julianne Moore and nominee Rosamund Pike.

Oscar winners & nominees

Best Picture
American Sniper. Clint Eastwood. Robert Lorenz. Andrew Lazar. Bradley Cooper. Peter Morgan.
* Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Alejandro González Iñárritu. John Lesher. James W. Skotchdopole.
Boyhood. Richard Linklater. Cathleen Sutherland.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson. Scott Rudin. Steven Rales. Jeremy Dawson.
The Imitation Game. Nora Grossman. Ido Ostrowsky. Teddy Schwarzman.
Selma. Christian Colson. Oprah Winfrey. Dede Gardner. Jeremy Kleiner.
The Theory of Everything. Tim Bevan. Eric Fellner. Lisa Bruce. Anthony McCarten.
Whiplash. Jason Blum. Helen Estabrook. David Lancaster.

Best Foreign Language Film
* Ida. Director Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland).
Leviathan. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev (Russia).
Tangerines / Mandariinid. Director Zaza Urushadze (Estonia).
Timbuktu. Director Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania).
Wild Tales / Relatos salvajes. Director Damián Szifrón (Argentina).

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard. Two Days, One Night.
Felicity Jones. The Theory of Everything.
* Julianne Moore. Still Alice.
Rosamund Pike. Gone Girl.
Reese Witherspoon. Wild.

Best Actor
Steve Carell. Foxcatcher.
Bradley Cooper. American Sniper.
Benedict Cumberbatch. The Imitation Game.
Michael Keaton. Birdman.
* Eddie Redmayne. The Theory of Everything.

Best Supporting Actress
* Patricia Arquette. Boyhood.
Laura Dern. Wild.
Keira Knightley. The Imitation Game.
Emma Stone. Birdman.
Meryl Streep. Into the Woods.

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall. The Judge.
Ethan Hawke. Boyhood.
Edward Norton. Birdman.
Mark Ruffalo. Foxcatcher.
* J.K. Simmons. Whiplash.

Best Director
* Alejandro González Iñárritu. Birdman.
Richard Linklater. Boyhood.
Bennett Miller. Foxcatcher.
Wes Anderson. The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Morten Tyldum. The Imitation Game.

Best Original Screenplay
* Birdman. Alejandro González Iñárritu. Nicolás Giacobone. Alexander Dinelaris Jr. Armando Bo.
Boyhood. Richard Linklater.
Foxcatcher. E. Max Frye. Dan Futterman.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Screenplay by Wes Anderson. Story by Wes Anderson. Hugo Guinness.
Nightcrawler. Dan Gilroy.

Best Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper. Jason Hall.
* The Imitation Game. Graham Moore.
Inherent Vice. Paul Thomas Anderson.
The Theory of Everything. Anthony McCarten.
Whiplash. Damien Chazelle.

Best Documentary Feature
* CitizenFour. Laura Poitras. Mathilde Bonnefoy. Dirk Wilutzky.
Finding Vivian Maier. John Maloof. Charlie Siskel.
Last Days in Vietnam. Rory Kennedy. Keven McAlester.
The Salt of the Earth. Wim Wenders. Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. David Rosier.
Virunga. Orlando von Einsiedel. Joanna Natasegara.

Best Animated Film
* Big Hero 6. Don Hall. Chris Williams. Roy Conli.
The Boxtrolls. Anthony Stacchi. Graham Annable. Travis Knight.
How to Train Your Dragon 2. Dean DeBlois. Bonnie Arnold.
Song of the Sea. Tomm Moore. Paul Young.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Isao Takahata. Yoshiaki Nishimura.

Best Cinematography
* Birdman. Emmanuel Lubezki.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Robert Yeoman.
Ida. Lukasz Zal. Ryszard Lenczewski.
Mr. Turner. Dick Pope.
Unbroken. Roger Deakins.

Best Film Editing
American Sniper. Joel Cox. Gary D. Roach.
Boyhood. Sandra Adair.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Barney Pilling.
The Imitation Game. William Goldenberg.
* Whiplash. Tom Cross.

Best Original Score
* The Grand Budapest Hotel. Alexandre Desplat.
The Imitation Game. Alexandre Desplat.
Interstellar. Hans Zimmer.
Mr. Turner. Gary Yershon.
The Theory of Everything. Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Best Production Design
* The Grand Budapest Hotel. Production Design: Adam Stockhausen. Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock.
The Imitation Game. Production Design: Maria Djurkovic. Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald.
Interstellar. Production Design: Nathan Crowley. Set Decoration: Gary Fettis.
Into the Woods. Production Design: Dennis Gassner. Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock.
Mr. Turner. Production Design: Suzie Davies. Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts.

Best Costume Design
* The Grand Budapest Hotel. Milena Canonero.
Inherent Vice. Mark Bridges.
Into the Woods. Colleen Atwood.
Maleficent. Anna B. Sheppard. Jane Clive.
Mr. Turner. Jacqueline Durran.

Best Visual Effects
Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Dan DeLeeuw. Russell Earl. Bryan Grill. Dan Sudick.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Joe Letteri. Dan Lemmon. Daniel Barrett. Erik Winquist.
Guardians of the Galaxy. Stephane Ceretti. Nicolas Aithadi. Jonathan Fawkner. Paul Corbould.
* Interstellar. Paul Franklin. Andrew Lockley. Ian Hunter. Scott Fisher.
X-Men: Days of Future Past. Richard Stammers. Lou Pecora. Tim Crosbie. Cameron Waldbauer.

John Legend and Common: Oscar 2015 Best Original Song winners.

Best Original Song
“Everything Is Awesome.” The Lego Movie.
Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson.
* “Glory.” Selma.
Music and Lyric by John Stephens a.k.a. John Legend and Lonnie Lynn a.k.a. Common.
“Grateful.” Beyond the Lights.
Music and Lyric by Diane Warren.
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You.” Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me.
Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond.
“Lost Stars.” Begin Again.
Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois.

Best Sound Editing
* American Sniper. Alan Robert Murray. Bub Asman.
Birdman. Martín Hernández. Aaron Glascock.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Brent Burge. Jason Canovas.
Interstellar. Richard King.
Unbroken. Becky Sullivan. Andrew DeCristofaro.

Best Sound Mixing
American Sniper. John Reitz. Gregg Rudloff. Walt Martin.
Birdman. Jon Taylor. Frank A. Montaño. Thomas Varga.
Interstellar. Gary A. Rizzo. Gregg Landaker. Mark Weingarten.
Unbroken. Jon Taylor. Frank A. Montaño. David Lee.
* Whiplash. Craig Mann. Ben Wilkins. Thomas Curley.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Foxcatcher. Bill Corso. Dennis Liddiard.
* The Grand Budapest Hotel. Frances Hannon. Mark Coulier.
Guardians of the Galaxy. Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou. David White.

Best Documentary Short
* Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1. Ellen Goosenberg Kent. Dana Perry.
Joanna. Aneta Kopacz.
Our Curse. Tomasz Sliwinski. Maciej Slesicki.
The Reaper (La Parka). Gabriel Serra Arguello.
White Earth. J. Christian Jensen.

Best Animated Short
The Bigger Picture. Daisy Jacobs. Christopher Hees.
The Dam Keeper. Robert Kondo. Dice Tsutsumi.
* Feast. Patrick Osborne. Kristina Reed.
Me and My Moulton. Torill Kove.
A Single Life. Joris Oprins.

Best Live Action Short
Aya. Oded Binnun. Mihal Brezis.
Boogaloo and Graham. Michael Lennox. Ronan Blaney.
Butter Lamp (La lampe au beurre de yak). Hu Wei. Julien Féret.
Parvaneh. Talkhon Hamzavi. Stefan Eichenberger.
* The Phone Call. Mat Kirkby. James Lucas.

Photo of the CitizenFour contingent – David Miranda, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Dirk Wilutzky: Matt Petit / © A.M.P.A.S.

Oscar 2015 / Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.

Note: In an earlier draft of our Oscar 2015 winners article, we had erroneously named Jim Sheridan as the director of The End of the Affair. Neil Jordan directed the 1999 romantic drama starring Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes.

2015 Oscar Winners: Meryl Streep Breaks 2 Records