Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette took to the stage lamenting the lack of equal pay for women in America.
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Julianne Moore —
This year marked the fifth time Moore has been nominated for an Academy Award. Whilst she missed out on the statuette for Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair, Far From Heaven and The Hours. She finally won for her starring role in Still Alice, playing a college professor with early-onset Alzheimer's.
Sony Pictures Classics
Patricia Arquette —
Arquette got her first Oscar win for Boyhood, critics praised the actress for allowing herself to age on screen across 12 years as she played Olivia Evans, a single mother mother trying to do the best for her children in suburban America.
IFC Films
Marion Cotillard —
Similarly embattled, Marion Cotillard plays a working mother forced out of her job and tasked with convincing her colleagues to re-employ her in Two Days, One Night.
Sundance Selects
Rosamund Pike —
Former Bond girl Rosamund Pike bagged her first nomination for her part in the adaptation of Gillian Flynn's bestseller Gone Girl. As a troubled writer seeking to escape a fractious marriage, Pike eats up the scenery around her in a tempestuous performance marking a new chapter in her career.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Reese Witherspoon —
Gone Girl's producer was nominated for another one of her projects, Wild. Witherspoon, like Cotillard, was hoping for a second win after picking up the Best Actress award in 2005 for Walk the Line.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Felicity Jones —
First-time nominee Felicity Jones received considerable praise for her performance The Theory of Everything, a biopic of famed British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Jones' performance as his wife Jane has caused considerable ripples across the pond, with many predicting big things to come.
Focus Features
Essie Davis —
In The Badadook, Essie Davis was allowed to let fly as a haunted mother trying to protect her son and herself from the titular monster. Similar to Trzebuchowska, the film genre itself -- in this case horror -- may have been a precursor as to why Davis was not in the running for Best Actress.
IFC Films/IFC Midnight/Sundance Selects
Scarlett Johansson —
As the eerie alien roaming Glasgow in Under The Skin, Scarlett Johansson displayed plenty of otherworldly qualities, amongst them a cut glass English accent. Lauded by critics but snubbed at the Oscars, the filmmakers and Johansson will be able to comfort themselves with the large cult following the movie has already attracted.
A24
Ava DuVernay —
This year Ava DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes for Selma. The film, which she directed and co-wrote, picked up a nomination by the Academy for Best Film. Fiercely outspoken, she has criticized the the lack of diversity among this year's nominations and the omission of the film's lead David Oyelowo from the Best Actor category.
Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Deadline
Amma Asante —
British screenwriter, director and former actress Amma Asante has received high praise for her second feature Belle. Based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a mixed race aristocrat in 18th century Britain, the film was screened at the UN as part of a retrospect on the impact of the slave trade.
David Buchan/Getty Images
Angelina Jolie —
Stepping behind the camera for a third time, Angelina Jolie directed newcomer Jack O'Connell in Unbroken, a biopic of the life of Louis Zamperini, a U.S. Olympian turned pilot turned WWII prisoner of war. Last year she also starred in Maleficent, a live-action version of Sleeping Beauty. Praised for her performance as the titular antihero, it became the highest-grossing film featuring the actress.
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Sam Taylor-Johnson —
The former artist has broken multiple records with her latest -- and perhaps the year's most infamous -- directorial feature, Fifty Shades of Grey. Slammed by most critics, the adaptation of E.L. James' erotic novel nonetheless grossed $239m on its opening weekend.
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
Jennifer Kent —
Her feature-length debut The Babadook started life as a short film in 2005. Expanding upon the horror story only brought more critical praise for Kent, with the film winning AACTA Awards for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay for the Australian.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Gillian Flynn —
Author Gillian Flynn adapted her bestseller Gone Girl and turned it into a box office behemoth, grossing nearly $400m. Just missing out on an Academy nomination for her screenplay, Flynn's leading lady Rosamund Pike received a Best Actress nod.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Gillian Robespierre —
The writer-director of Obvious Child (center) is only just starting her career behind the camera, but has already received plaudits for her tale of unwanted pregnancy. Groundbreaking in its honest and humorous approach to a delicate subject, the film debuted at Sundance after a Kickstarter campaigned raised $37,214, before going on to see a wide cinematic release.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images for IFP
Megan Ellison —
As the daughter of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison she has had her critics in the past, many of whom saw her role in the industry as a more of a hobby than a career. But Megan Ellison, founder of Annapurna Pictures, is one of Hollywood's hottest producers at the moment -- she has backed True Grit, The Master, Zero Dark Thirty, Her and American Hustle in recent years. She backed Foxcatcher which was an Oscar contender, proving that as well as money, she has the eye for a great film.
Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images
Nina Jacobson —
After an executive career at Disney and Buena Vista, Nina Jacobson started her own production company, Color Force. Beginning with Diary of a Wimpy Kid and bestseller adaptation One Day, Color Force now produces the Hunger Games tetralogy, with Jacobson taking on co-writing duties for the $2.28b franchise.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Emma Thomas —
British producer and wife of director Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas has co-produced all of her husband's films. Syncopy Inc., the company founded by the couple, has released eight features with a combined gross of over $4.6b.