LOS ANGELES — "The Revenant" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" were showered with honors by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, picking up Oscar nominations for best picture and best director.
There will be six best picture nominees to join them: "Bridge of Spies," "Spotlight," "The Big Short," "The Martian," "Brooklyn" and "Room." Notably not among them: "Straight Outta Compton" and "Carol," both of which were pegged to make the cut by awards handicappers.
"The Revenant," a revenge tale directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu that is set in the 1800s, drew 12 nominations in total — the most of any film — with Leonardo DiCaprio honored for his lead acting and Tom Hardy for his supporting role. The movie also was nominated for its cinematography, sound editing and sound mixing.
The best directing field will be led by Iñárritu and George Miller, the director of "Mad Max: Fury Road," with Tom McCarthy ("Spotlight"), Adam McKay ("The Big Short") and Lenny Abrahamson ("Room") joining them. Abrahamson's nomination was a surprise. Left out was Ridley Scott, the director of "The Martian."
For the second year in a row, Oscar voters put forth an all-white field of acting nominees.
"The Revenant," "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the documentary "Amy" will be among the films competing for Oscars in the further-flung categories at the 88th Academy Awards next month.
The academy announced the nominations in two batches on Thursday morning, the first group with categories like documentary, sound editing and mixing, animated film and screenwriting. The second wave will include the closely watched acting, directing and best picture nominations.
A few open questions were quickly settled. "Anomalisa," a bit of stop-motion puppetry from Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, for instance, overcame head-scratching by some animation fans to take its place alongside the more conventionally built "Inside Out," "When Marnie Was There," "Boy and the World" and "Shaun the Sheep Movie" in the best animated film category. Left out were Pixar's "The Good Dinosaur" and "The Peanuts Movie."
Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy president; Guillermo del Toro; Ang Lee and the actor John Krasinski took turns reading the list of nominees at a news conference that started at 5:30 a.m. Pacific time. (Why those film celebrities? They have promotional irons in the fire. Krasinski stars in Paramount's "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi," set to open on Friday. Lee is finishing "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk," for release by Sony in November. Del Toro is among the producers of "Kung Fu Panda 3," due from DreamWorks Animation this month.)
There was little mystery to the first-round nominations: Most of the contenders have been considered locked for months, the result of a dance that started in the summer, with studio strategists whispering into the ears of awards handicappers.
In the category of best cinematography, for instance, the nominees — as some of the savvier prognosticators have long predicted — are "The Revenant," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "The Hateful Eight," "Carol" and "Sicario."
The documentary race brought some surprises, with "Amy," "Winter on Fire," "Cartel Land," "The Look of Silence" and "What Happened, Miss Simone?" earning nominations; shut out were the scientology film "Going Clear" and the campus rape examination "The Hunting Ground."
Unlike last year's awards race, when "Birdman" and "Boyhood" dominated (with "The Grand Budapest Hotel" in hot pursuit), this year's competition is still wide open. A ragged Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday did little to focus the competition. "Carol," which led the field heading into the night, left empty-handed; Iñárritu's "The Revenant," a late arrival on the circuit, took the awards for best drama and best director.
The newspaper drama "Spotlight," considered a major contender by many awards handicappers, was shut out at the Globes, as was "The Big Short," which is centered on last decade's mortgage meltdown. One of the only films to receive multiple Globes, "Steve Jobs" has been considered an also-ran on the awards trail, partly because it was rejected at the box office; Globe voters gave it prizes for Aaron Sorkin's screenplay and Kate Winslet's acting in a supporting role.
After three years of entrusting its ceremony to the producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who brought in Seth MacFarlane to sing about female on-screen nudity as host and Neil Patrick Harris to stand in his underwear, the Academy has turned to a new pair of telecast producers: Reginald Hudlin, a filmmaker whose raucous comedies include "House Party," and David Hill, a producer with credits on "American Idol" and the 2011 World Series broadcast.
Under pressure to lift ratings — the audience for the last year's ceremony dropped nearly 15 percent, to around 36.6 million viewers, from 43 million in 2014 — the new producers turned to Chris Rock to host. (NBC attracted about 18.5 million viewers for this year's Globes, down from 19.3 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen data.)
ABC will broadcast the Oscars on Feb. 28.