What are the nominees for the 2016 Best Picture Oscar?

Watch the trailers and read our guide to the Academy's favourite eight films of the year

The Oscar nominees for Best Picture


Telegraph Film2 February 2016 • 7:00am

The bookies suggest that this year will see a tussle between the bombastic bankers of The Big Short and the hungry hacks of Spotlight. But could the technical achievements of The Revenant or the box-office-slaying success of The Martian win out on the day? Below is everything you need to know about the eight nominated films.

The Big Short
The Big ShortCredit: Jaap Buitendijk

The story: Michael Lewis's 2010 bestseller about the 2007 financial crash is adapted by director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers) into a free-wheeling comedy about the men who bet against the overheated US housing market – among them Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt and Steve Carell – and became rich in the process.

Box office take: $102 million (31/01/2016)
THE BIG SHORT: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!02:25

What the critics said: The Telegraph's Robbie Collin was not unusual in giving the film a glowing notice: it's currently rated as 88 per cent freshon the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Robbie wrote that the film "somehow not only makes sense of mortgage bonds, collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps, but makes them funny too."

Did you know?: The original script featured a scene in which Beyonce and her husband Jay Z explained synthetic collateralised debt obligations. They were ultimately replaced with Selena Gomez and Dr Richard Thaler.

Bridge of Spies
Credit: ©DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved./Jaap Buitendijk

The story: Steven Spielberg's 31st feature is a Cold War thriller based on a real-life story: Tom Hanks's genial lawyer is asked to defend a man who may or may not be a Soviet spy (Mark Rylance).

Box office take: $160 million (31/01/2016)
BRIDGE OF SPIES: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!02:56

What the critics said: According to the Telegraph's Robbie Collin, the film is a "mature and classically handsome thriller, swirling with novelistic intrigue. At times it even feels like the great James Stewart Cold War drama that never was: think of it as a kind of Mr. Smith Goes to East Berlin, complete with a Capra-esque twinkle."

Did you know? The film's script was co-written by the Coen brothers.

Brooklyn
Domhnall Gleeson and Saoirse Ronan in 'Brooklyn'

The story: A young woman (played by Saoirse Ronan) leaves her home in Ireland in search of a better life in America, and finds herself torn between two countries and two suitors (Domhnall Gleeson and Emory Cohen), in John Crowley's adaptation of Colm Colm Tóibín's bestselling novel.

Box office take: $30 million (31/01/2016)
BROOKLYN: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!02:32

What the critics said: The Telegraph's Tim Robey lavished praise on the film's actors in his four-star review, from the leads down to the walk-on extras. He singled out the film's casting director, Fiona Weir, writing: "In the tingling chemistry between two of her young leads, Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen, Weir and the film’s director, John Crowley, achieve something close to a miracle – the kind of old-fashioned, shivers-down-the-spine serendipity that’s hushed and special, and can’t be taught."

Did you know?: Although Saoirse Ronan grew up in Ireland, she was born in The Bronx, and her parents were married in Brooklyn.

Mad Max: Fury Road
Credit: Copyright (c) 2015 Rex Features. No use without permission./Everett/REX Shutterstock

The story: Director George Miller returns to the post-apocalyptic world of "Mad" Max Rockatansky, with Tom Hardy taking on the role made iconic by Mel Gibson in the early Eighties. Hardy joins forces with Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa to help the five "wives" of the wasteland's ruler escape from his clutches.

Box office take: £375 million (31/01/2016)
MAD MAX FURY ROAD: OFFICIAL TRAILERPlay!02:54

What the critics said: The Telegraph's Robbie Collin was one of the film's biggest supporters. In his five-star review of this "Krakatoan eruption of craziness", he noted that the film broke blockbuster convention in several ways, with its "Rabelaisian delight in grotesque bodies" robustly feminist point of view: "Fury Road’s alpha male is, in fact, a woman".

Did you know?: Margaret Sixel, the film's editor (and wife of director George Miller), crafted the two-hour film from 480 hours of material.

The Martian
Matt Damon in Ridley Scott's 'The Martian'

The story: American astronaut Matt Damon has to figure out a way to survive on the Red Planet after being left behind by his crew, missing presumed dead. Ridley Scott's blockbuster is based on Andy Weir's book of the same name, which was initially self-published on his website.

Box office take: $600 million (31/01/2016)
THE MARTIAN: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!03:08

What the critics said: The critical consensus on the film was highly favourable, and it won the prize for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the Golden Globes. The Telegraph's Tim Robey was less impressed, taking issue with the jokey tone, which is as if Scott and his screenwriter had "sat through Interstellar flashing each other knowing looks about how self-serious its ideas all were".

Did you know?: Director Ridley Scott claims that he knew that Nasa had discovered water on Mars two months before the general public did.

The Revenant
Grizzly man: Leonardo DiCaprio in The RevenantCredit: Everett/REX/Shutterstock

The story: Hardened mountain man Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is abandoned by his party of fur-trappers, left for dead by two treacherous colleagues (Tom Hardy and Will Poulter) after he is the victim of a near-fatal bear attack. He drags his way across icy wastelands to seek revenge.

Box office take: $275 million (31/01/2016)
TWO MINUTES WITH… THE REVENANT DIRECTOR ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITUPlay!02:13

What the critics said: Critics were mostly rapturous about director Alejandro González Iñárritu's achievement in shooting the film in intense conditions. The Telegraph's Robbie Collin was impressed: "It's two and a half hours of beautiful, visceral present," he wrote, "a film that’s chasing transcendence and wants it now, now, now."

Did you know?: According to Tom Hardy, actor and gonzo journalist Sean Penn was originally cast in his part.

Room
Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay in Room

The story: Kidnapped as a teenage, Ma (Brie Larson) struggles to raise the child of her rape (Jacob Tremblay) in the backyard shed in which she's imprisoned. Lenny Abrahamson's film is based on the bestseller by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the screenplay.

Box office take: $10 million (31/01/2016)
ROOM: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!02:31

What the critics said: The Telegraph's Tim Robey admired the film's central performances, but sounded a note of warning: "It ought to be a triumph," he wrote. "Somehow, though, it lacks the flooding emotional force Donoghue gave it on the page."

Did you know?: To evoke the claustrophobic environment of the shed, the set was constructed with dozens of panels based on an "inverted Rubik’s Cube", which could be removed to allow filming to happen.

Spotlight


The story: In this screen version of a true story, the investigative journalists of The Boston Globe (played by, among others, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams) work to uncover the details of a sex abuse scandal in the city's Catholic Church.

Box office take: $35 million (31/01/2016)
SPOTLIGHT: WATCH THE TRAILERPlay!02:28

What the critics said: Most critics were impressed with the ensemble playing of the starry cast. The Telegraph's Robbie Collin admired the way the film "finds a thrilling and absorbing anti-glamour in journalistic spadework, and the tactile movement of analogue information through filing cabinets and photocopiers."

Did you know?: As well as this Oscar-nominated effort, director Tom McCarthy was also responsible for one of the worst-reviewed films of the year, The Cobbler, which starred Adam Sandler and took $26,000 at the US box office.