12. Snub: Ava Duvernay & Damien Chazelle For Best Director
While it was dead certain that Alejandro González Iñárritu and Richard Linklater were going to be nominated for their directing work on Birdman and Boyhood respectively, it was hugely shocking that Ava Duvernay wasn't nominated for her splendid work on Selma, which would've made her the first black female ever nominated for the award. Also disappointing was that, despite the general Academy love for Damien Chazelle's superb music drama Whiplash (even giving it a Best Picture nomination), they couldn't bring themselves to give the young filmmaker the Directing rub. In Duvernay's case, the answer is pretty clear: Paramount didn't mail screeners to the Director's Guild and relied on in-person screenings, which was a poor strategy and resulted in her being shut out. Chazelle, meanwhile, was always a long shot, but he absolutely deserved it with his superb work on Whiplash, certainly more so than Morten Tyldum, who did a decent if forgettable job on The Imitation Game.