Steve Jobs flopped at the box office and with Silicon Valley, but with two Oscar nominations the film continues a kind of redemption tour through the awards season.
Jobs actor Michael Fassbender was nominated for best actor and co-star Kate Winslet, who already won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of former Apple marketing chief Joanna Hoffman, received a supporting actress nomination.
Screenplay writer Aaron Sorkin, a Golden Globe winner earlier this week, was left off the list of Academy Award nominees.
The Steve Jobs biopic, which attempts to distill the essence of the mercurial founder and genius innovator behind Apple, was trashed by some critics, friends of Jobs, and tech journalists who dismissed it as fiction. Film critic Rex Reed called it the year’s worst film.
“It’s a fun Aaron Sorkin movie — if you pretend it’s about a fictitious guy called ‘Steve Jobs,’” Cult of Mac’s Luke Dormehl wrote last month. “Try and reconcile it with the real guy it’s based on and it’ll leave your disappointed — or worse.”
Sorkin and director Danny Boyle, who went on the defensive following waves of criticism, likely feel somewhat soothed by how the movie has performed in front of awards judges.
The Oscar nominations were announced Thursday morning at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The awards ceremony, which will air live in the U.S. on ABC, takes place Feb. 28.
The film previously picked up four Golden Globe nominations. (Casting Winslet in any movie seemingly guarantees accolades during awards season.)
Fassbender, winner of an International Star prize at the recent Palm Springs International Film Festival, lost the Golden Globe to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant.
Steve Jobs has earned three nominations for the BAFTA, the United Kingdom’s most respected film award.
