Steven Spielberg-directed political biopic Lincoln is leading the Oscar race this year with 12 nominations while Ang Lee-helmed Indian drama Life of Pi has bagged 11 nods, including in the best picture and director categories.
The Best Picture category for the 85th Academy Awards is highly competitive this year with nine films fighting for the golden statuette.
Life of Pi, the survival story of an Indian boy lost in the ocean with a Bengal tiger will fight closely with political dramas like Lincoln, Ben Affleck's Argo, and Katheryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, a film on the manhunt for Osama bin Laden.
The other films in the race for best picture are David O Russell's comedy Silver Linings Playbook, Tom Hooper's musical Les Miserables, Michael Haneke's Amour, Quentin Tarantino's civil-war set western Django Unchained and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Taiwanese-American filmmaker Lee, who chose an entirely Indian cast for Pi and shot some scenes in India, is in the race for the best director trophy with Spielberg, Russell, Haneke and Zeitlin.
Pi, which starred Delhi boy Suraj Sharma in the lead and noted Indian actors like Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Adil Hussain, also gained nominations in categories like Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Original Song (Pi's lullaby), Production Design, Best Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Indian Carnatic music vocalist Bombay Jayashri has been nominated for Pi's Lullaby along with the composer Michael Danna.
Daniel Day-Lewis is leading in the Best Actor category for his widely-praised portrayal of the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln in the Reliance-DreamWorks produced Lincoln. The film follows Lincoln's struggle to abolish slavery as the country goes for a civil war.
The other contenders in the best actor category are Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook (also starring Indian actor Anupam Kher), Denzel Washington for Flight, Joaquin Phoenix for The Master and Hugh Jackman for Les Miserables.
Actress Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane announced the nominations today at Hollywood.
85-year-old French actress Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest ever to be nominated in the Best Actress category. Riva plays a woman struggling with old age and death in Haneke's poignant film Amour, which was also the top winner Cannes last year.
The record for being the youngest ever nominee in the same category goes to 8-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis for her role in Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Jessica Chastain is also a strong contender for the Best Actress trophy this year for her role of a CIA agent in Zero Dark Thirty. She is facing competition from Silver Linings Playbook star Jennifer Lawrence and Naomi Watts from tsunami drama The Impossible.
The Supporting Actor list is full of Oscar-winning actors such as Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Alan Arkin (Argo), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained).
The Supporting Actress category has Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions) and Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook.
British soul singer Adele has earned an Oscar nomination with her rendition of the theme song of James Bond film Skyfall. Other contenders in the category are Before My Time from Chasing Ice and Everybody Needs A Best Friend' from Ted.
Haneke's Amour is leading in the Best Foreign Film category from Austria. The others on the list are Kon-Tiki from Norway, No from Chile, A Royal Affair from Denmark and War Witch from Canada.
The Best Documentary Feature category is being led by 5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. The documentary shows a Palestinian farmer's chronicle of his non-violent resistance to the Israeli army.
The other nominees in this category are The Gatekeepers, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War and Searching for Sugar Man.
Inocente, Kings Point, Mondays at Racine, Open Heart and Redemption are nominated in the Best Documentary Short category.
