Is Oscar an ashtray? 57% of nominated films include tobacco imagery in 2015

Several people have asked for information how much smoking is in Oscar nominated movies this year.  My colleague Jonathan Polansky assembled the data, which is available in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet here.
 
The 2014 set of Oscar-nominated films is somewhat of a departure from recent Oscar years when Oscar-nominated films typically were smokier than movies as a whole. While there are no fewer Oscar-nominated smoking films in absolute numbers, the percentage with smoking is lower.
 
Nominated films are a small subsample of each year's 140-160 top-grossing films and are skewed toward R-rated films for a host of reasons including adult interest and studio campaigns to secure nominations for smaller "prestige" films in hopes of boosting their box office and ancillary rights revenue.
 
More nominated films have been "biographical" films in the last couple years. But in 2014, fewer of these films included smoking. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, 100% of nominated "biographical" films included tobacco imagery.  In 2014 it was 75% (6/8).
 
Of the twenty nominated actors, sixteen (80%) have smoked in other top-grossing film roles. But only five (25%) smoke in this year's nominated films. Only one of these roles is based on an actual person (American Sniper, R) and only one is youth-rated (Boyhood, PG-13).                                                
 
Smoke Free Movies broadly-backed proposal to R-rate future movies with smoking would permit an exception for films depicting the smoking of an actual historical person who used tobacco, as in a biographical drama or documentary.