Jordan’s highly acclaimed film “Theeb” is officially in the final running for the 2016 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Academy Awards announced the final nominations Thursday afternoon, leaving only five films competing for the award. The other films are “Embrace of the Serpant”, “Mustang”, “Son of Saul” and “A War”.

The Arabic film was directed and co-written by Jordanian director Naji Abu Nowar. Nowar’s debut feature film is the only Arabic-language film and the only film from the Middle East and North Africa in the running for the foreign-language film category.

The brutal frontier saga “The Revenant” leads the 88th annual Academy Awards with 12 nominations, while the acting categories were again filled entirely by white performers.

The strong showing for “The Revenant,” including a best actor nod for Leonardo DiCaprio, follows its win at the Golden Globes. It sets director Alejandro Inarritu for a possible back-to-back win following his best-picture winning “Birdman” last year.

George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” followed with 10 nominations, including best picture. Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic “The Martian” landed 7 nominations, including best picture, but no best director nod for Scott.

Eight films were nominated for best picture. The other five were: Tom McCarthy’s investigative journalistic procedural “Spotlight,” Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller “Bridge of Spies,” Adam McKay’s Michael Lewis adaptation “The Big Short,” the mother-son captive drama “Room” and the ‘50s Irish immigrant tale “Brooklyn.”

Left on the outside were Todd Haynes’ acclaimed lesbian romance “Carol” and the N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton.”

The acting nominees, which notably omitted Idris Elba for “Beasts of No Nation” and Benicio Del Toro for “Sicario,” gave the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences an awkward repeat of the “OscarsSoWhite” backlash that followed last year’s acting nominees.

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has since redoubled efforts to diversify the academy’s membership, and slated Chris Rock to host this year’s Feb. 28 ceremony.

Alongside DiCaprio, the nominees for best actor are: Matt Damon (“The Martian“), Michael Fassbender (“Steve Jobs“), Eddie Redmayne (“The Danish Girl“) and Bryan Cranston (“Trumbo“).

The best actress field is led by favorite Brie Larson for “Room,” along with Jennifer Lawrence (“Joy“), Cate Blanchett (“Carol“), Saoirse Ronan (“Brooklyn“) and Charlotte Rampling (“45 Years“).

Though some fans had hoped for a better showing, the box-office behemoth “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” failed to land a best picture nomination. It instead scored five technical nods for editing, score, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing.

Since the best picture field was expanded from five nominees to up to 10, in 2010, every year has delivered nine nominations until this year’s eight. The original reasoning was partly to make room for bigger, more populist films like Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” alongside acclaimed independent releases.

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