We’re in the full thicket of awards season madness and the latest guild has weighed in with its best in cinema in 2014. The Art Directors Guild announced their nominations Monday for the best achievements in production design. Now in its 19th year of handing out prizes, the films that made the grade here may portend what lies ahead for the Best Production Design category at the Academy Awards. Favorites like Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Imitation Game all earned respective nods, yet the Art Directors split genres (period films, contemporary films, fantasy films), which allows more films to be highlighted than the Oscars’ designated five slots.
What’s important to think about with the guild announcements is not so much the individual mentions by a certain guild, but to see which film(s) seem to be gathering a broad range of support throughout. For instance, while Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a noticeable absentee from the Art Directors Guild list (the film may not have qualified, in fact), it may not mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Conversely, Nightcrawler‘s inclusion here (as well as its mention by the ACE Eddies) may further cement wide-ranging support for Dan Gilroy’s dark and brooding thriller; same goes for American Sniper. Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s fact-based WWII drama earned a nod, perhaps a helpful grace note considering that the mixed-reviewed film has came up short in the awards season so far. A few key films snubbed by the Art Directors Guild include Selma and Mr. Turner, both of which may need all the guild support they can muster to stay afloat in this phase of the awards season.
Something new for the Art Directors Guild this go around was a change in description for their categories, specifically a rule change regarding a film’s time-frame. For contemporary films, the field was expanded for films that are set twenty years ago to twenty years from now, and period films include any movies set at least twenty years ago or earlier. The awards are voted on by members of the Art Directors Guild (which include some crossover with the Academy). The ceremony will take place on January 31, 2015. The full list of film nominees:
BEST ART DIRECTION (Contemporary Film)
- American Sniper– James J. Murakami, Charisse Cardenas
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)– Kevin Thompson
- Foxcatcher– Jess Gonchor
- Gone Girl– Donald Graham Burt
- Nightcrawler– Kevin Kavanaugh
BEST ART DIRECTION (Period Film)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel– Adam Stockhausen
- The Imitation Game– Maria Djurkovic
- Inherent Vice– David Crank
- The Theory of Everything– John Paul Kelly
- Unbroken– Jon Hutman
BEST ART DIRECTION (Fantasy Film)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier– Peter Wenham
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes– James Chinlund
- Guardians of the Galaxy– Charles Wood
- Interstellar– Nathan Crowley
- Into the Woods– Dennis Gassner
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