LOS ANGELES — An unexpected double win for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Birdman,” at the expense of Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” jolted the Oscar race over the weekend, even as Harvey Weinstein made a bid to enhance his own contender, “The Imitation Game,” as a filmic standard-bearer against past injustices directed at gays.
The twists and turns, and an apparently unstable contest among several prospects for best picture — “Birdman,” “Imitation Game” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” all have more nominations than “Boyhood,” which had seemed to be the leader — leave room, perhaps, for a surprise of the kind that occurred in 2005. That year, “Million Dollar Baby,” Clint Eastwood’s film about a female boxer that contained a message about euthanasia, slipped past “The Aviator,” which won five Oscars, to take the top prize.
On Saturday night the Producers Guild of America gave its bellwether best film award to the producers of “Birdman.” For the last seven years, the winner of that award has gone on to be named the Oscar-winning best picture. On Sunday, the Screen Actors Guild gave its ensemble cast award to “Birdman.” That showed strong support for the film — about a screen superstar seeking personal and professional salvation on the theatrical stage — among actors, who make up the largest voting bloc in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars.
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Gender identity themes were prominent this month at the Golden Globes, where “Transparent” and “The Normal Heart” won television awards.
But Weinstein’s “Philomena,” with a gay back story, won no Oscars last year, though it was nominated for best picture. And “Brokeback Mountain,” a gay love story that seemed poised to win the top Oscar in 2006, was swept aside by “Crash,” which rode its own claim to significance — it was about race and class tensions in Los Angeles — to a surprise victory on Academy Awards night.
A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2015, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Weekend Scrambles Top Oscar Prospects . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
