After Crash won Best Picture, it's fair to say our rubrics for what constitutes “Oscar-worthiness” shifted a bit. Every year it seems like we find ourselves with another shocking set of Oscar nominees, and sometimes that shock is a good thing (Hooray, Melissa McCarthy!) and sometimes it's a bad thing (All white acting nominees again?).
Today, we celebrate a list of performers, actors, and songwriters who blew our minds by grabbing an Oscar nomination. Some are well-known nominees and others slipped in under our collective radar. Altogether, they're a weird bunch of Academy-ready stars.
