The Wolf of Wall Street went into Sunday's Oscars with five nominations, including one for best picture, but the controversial movie was shut out at the Academy Awards, failing to collect a single trophy.
The film was also nominated for best supporting actor (Jonah Hill), best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), best original screenplay (Terence Winter) and best director (Martin Scorsese).
For DiCaprio, the loss was his fifth Oscars defeat, losing this year to Matthew McConaughey for his role in Dallas Buyers Club.
The film has generated controversy for its unflinching portrayal of Jordan Belfort and ignoring the victims of his penny-stock scamming, many of whom have condemned the film for glorifying the behavior of Wall Street con artists like Belfort.
In response to such claims, Belfort told The Hollywood Reporter, "It's laughable when people say [Scorsese is] glorifying my behavior, because the movie is so obviously an indictment. I could have easily been redeemed at the end of the film, because I am redeemed in real life, but [Scorsese] left all that out because he wanted to make a statement - and I respect that. Even though I'll be the whipping boy for the world."
Belfort also told THR, "it was awful what I did. But it was under the [influence] of massive quantities of drugs."
Scorsese, DiCaprio and Winter all defended the film to THR, also.
"Look, it is a cautionary tale, " DiCaprio told THR. "It is an indictment of this world. We don't like these people, you know what I mean? But we very consciously said, 'Let's insulate the audience in the mindset of what these people's lives were like so we better understand something about the very culture that we live in.' We very purposely didn't do the traditional approach of cutting away to the people affected by this."
