Most of the year’s late-release Oscar-oriented films found themselves completely frozen out of the Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, which were announced Wednesday morning. Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken” and Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” — along with J.C. Chandor’s

“A Most Violent Year” and Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes,” both of which are lagging, buzz-wise — nabbed nary a nomination. But if one were only taking into account films released or shown at festivals in the first 11 months of the year, the surprises were few. “Birdman” (which came away with the most SAG nominations, four), “Boyhood,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Imitation Game” and “The Theory of Everything” earned nominations for outstanding performance by a cast, the organization’s equivalent of best picture.

In the best actor category all of the predictables got a nod, including, from “The Imitation Game,” Benedict Cumberbatch, who had a good morning with three mentions (including nominations for best film and best television movie actor, for “Sherlock”), and Jake Gyllenhaal, who had been considered more of an outlier in that ever-competitive category.

In the best actress category, everyone who has long been forecast to be in the running nabbed nominations too, with Jennifer Aniston landing the outlier (of sorts) spot for her work in the indie “Cake.” The other longer shot nominations went to Naomi Watts, for best supporting actress in “St. Vincent,” and Robert Duvall for best supporting actor in “The Judge,” a plot-jammed film that left critics, if not audiences, cold.

And, taken collectively, the SAG nominations have a diversity factor of zero. (That’s on the film side; the television categories are a different story.)

With more than 100,000 members, around 1,100 of whom select the nominees for its movie awards, the SAGs obviously carry more populous heft, if less prestige, than the Oscars, which are decided by the Academy’s 6,000 members.

But how predictive for the Oscars are the SAG awards?

Pretty predictive, at least in the best actor and actress categories. In the past decade, there were four times that all four actors who won SAG Awards went on to nab Oscars: in 2014, 2011, 2010 and 2005. And for four other years – 2013, 2012, 2007 and 2006 – the SAG acting awards matched the Oscars in all categories save one.

But for the best picture crown, SAG matched the Oscars only half the time.

At just 10 days into the official awards season – and 74 days until the Oscars, but who’s counting? — the SAG nominees pretty much mirror the half-dozen or so awards that have been doled out since Dec. 1.

For months now, it’s been clear which horses are in the lead in the acting categories. It’s pretty clear, too, what the best picture forerunners are. Less obvious still is which others may yet break into the pack, and then break out of it to win.

(The New York Times)