The nominations for the 86th Academy Awards were announced yesterday. After looking through them all I have to say generally I’m quite happy with who and what was nominated – though I am a bit gutted by a few omissions.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to watch all the films nominated for Oscars this year – or at least all those in the four acting categories, and best director and best film. By the looks of things I should be able to tick off that resolution by the time the Oscar winners are announced on March 2^nd.

Let’s start with Best Film. I have seen six of the nine films nominated, the three I haven’t seen being Her, Dallas Buyers Club and The Wolf of Wall Street. Those three films have yet to be released in the UK (or in the case of The Wolf of Wall Street it’s released today). Out of what I’ve seen so far (and if I’m honest seeing the other three films won’t change this) 12 Years A Slave should most definitely win.

With the Best Director category I have yet to see Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street. I’m sure it is equally as good as the rest of the nominees but I feel that it’ll be a toss-up between Steve McQueen and Alfonso Cuarón. Either I’d be happy with to be honest but I have my fingers crossed for Steve McQueen.

You can see a trend when it comes to the acting categories. I’ve not yet seen The Wolf of Wall Street so can’t comment on Leonardo DiCaprio’s Best Actor nod (though it’s about time he was nominated again) or Jonah Hill’s Best Supporting Actor nod. Haven’t seen Dallas Buyers Club so can’t comment on Matthew McConaughey’s Best Actor nod or Jared Leto’s Best Supporting Actor nod – although they both look amazing and I can’t wait to see this film. As it stands I really want Chiwetel Ejioforto win Best Actor for 12 Years a Slave and for Best Supporting I’d like either Michael Fassbender for 12 Years a Slave or Barkhad Abdi for Captain Phillips to win.

With both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories the only film and therefore the only actresses’ performances I have yet to see is August: Osage County so I can’t comment on Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts’s performances. To be honest I’d be quite happy with anyone in the Best Actress category to win because I thought they were all great and the films are all brilliant too. When it comes to Best Supporting Actress though – if Lupita Nyong’o doesn’t win I’ll be severely disappointed.

Like I said overall I’m quite content with who and what was nominated. But! (Of course there’s a but) I’m a bit disappointed that Oprah Winfrey didn’t get a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Butler because she was amazing and my favourite part of that film. I’m actually kind of surprised that The Butler didn’t get any Oscar love to be honest. I wish Daniel Brühl had received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Rush – he really was fantastic in that film. The only other omission I went “WHAT THE?!” about was Pacific Rim not getting a nomination for Best Visual Effects – it had a giant robot whack an alien with a boat! The visuals were fantastic and deserved to be nominated. I think I’m most bitter about Pacific Rim‘s snub than anything else to be honest. And let’s be honest all the films nominated are generally those which have been released in the past few months so films that are worthy of nominations like Rush and The Place Beyond the Pines obviously miss out just because of their release date.

So that’s all the excitement till the awards night itself. Between now and then I hope to watch  August: Osage County, Her, Dallas Buyers Club and The Wolf of Wall Street so I can succeed in a New Year’s resolution and be able to shout at my laptop when the winners are announced.

You can find a full list of nominations HERE.