Black Panther surprises at Oscars; A Quiet Place, First Man snubbed

The 2019 Oscar shortlist got shorter with today’s nominations, and those predictors — whether they were just fans or professional odds crunchers — are reeling from some of the surprises and snubs coming down from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Genre films always have handicapped chances during awards season, but after relatively weak showings at the Golden Globes and many of the professional awards, the Oscar chances of fans' favorite films seemed low. However, with a Best Picture nomination for Black Panther, the first ever for a superhero movie, there's at least one major step forward for genre movies already thanks to this year's Oscars. However, that's one of the only places that genre got its due.

Black Panther, aside from its Best Picture nomination, had perhaps the most disappointing results. Typically the top honor stems from a build-up of other major category nominations, but the film saw itself removed from the Supporting Actor race, as Michael B. Jordan failed to show in the category; the Adapted Screenplay race; and the Visual Effects race, with Avengers: Infinity War taking over the designated Marvel spot portended by the Visual Effects Society's awards.

However, the hugely popular film still surprised with a slew of design awards (but no Makeup and Hairstyling nomination), including Best Costume Design, Production Design, Original Score, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing -- the latter alongside A Quiet Place.

That film saw Emily Blunt shut out of the Supporting Actress race and failed to make a mark in the Original Screenplay category, though it had the highest chance of any genre film this year to do so. First Man's Claire Foy and Ryan Gosling similarly saw no awards love from the Oscars, as the film received mostly disappointing nominations outside of a VFX nod.

Mary Poppins Returns showed up in few categories (Costume Design, Production Design, Score, and Song), but not nearly as many as the film's copious guild and critics awards may have predicted. Toni Collette’s buzzy Hereditary performance was, as some expected, not nominated, because when's the last time a horror film got any awards season love at all?

Oh well, at least fans can root for Black Panther in one major category.

The Oscars will air on Feb. 24.