It's the big one! The 2013 Academy Awards nominations have been announced in LA, and Lincoln leads the pack with 12 nominations. Emma Stone and Seth McFarlane, this year's Oscar host, made an atypically funny and entertaining announcement this morning in LA, ahead of the ceremony on February 24 this year. Life Of Pi came close behind with 11 awards, while Les Misérables and Silver Linings Playbook both picked up 8 (the latter did exceptionally well in the Acting categories, with nods in all four fields). Argo managed 7 nods, while there were 5 for Amour, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained and Skyfall. The Best Picture nominees are a respectable and eclectic bunch. The big, obvious Oscar contenders like Lincoln, Les Misérables, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are rubbing shoulders with smaller films like Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Amour, with slightly left-field choices like the super-violent Django Unchained and the quirkily romantic Silver Linings Playbook. For Best Actor, frontrunner Daniel Day-Lewis goes up against Denzel Washington for Flight, Hugh Jackman for Les Misérables, Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook and Joaquin Phoenix for The Master. We can't help wondering if there's any point those four guys showing up but best of luck to them. Best Actress is a category that's harder to call. Jessica Chastain's intense turn in Zero Dark Thirty is nominated, as is Naomi Watts for her desperate straits in The Impossible, while Jennifer Lawrence is up for her simmering anger in Silver Linings Playbook. But what's most interesting is the extreme age range added by the other two nominees: Emmanuelle Riva, at 85, gets the nod for her heartbreaking work in Amour, while 9 year-old Quvenzhane Wallis is up for Beasts Of The Southern Wild. Best Director is perhaps the most surprising category of all. Previous nominees Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee and David O. Russell go against arthouse giant Michael Haneke and absolute newcomer Benh Zeitlin. It's the most interesting selection in that category in ages, and one that we find a lot more interesting than the equivalent BAFTA line-up this year. Could it be Haneke's year? Probably not, but it's nice to see the Palme d'Or winner up there. Best Supporting Actor shows nominations for Christoph Waltz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Alan Arkin and Tommy Lee Jones - all previous winners of an Acting award. Best Supporting Actress sees Sally Field, Anne Hathaway, Jackie Weaver, Helen Hunt and Amy Adams duke it out - all previous nominees, although only two have won before (Hunt and Field). Best Animated nominees are Frankenweenie, Paranorman, Brave, The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists and Wreck-It-Ralph. Always nice to see five films up for that award, and it's interesting that three of them are stop-motion rather than CG this year. Best Original Song saw love for Chasing Ice, Life Of Pi, Les Miserables, Ted and Skyfall - one of five nominations for the Bond film. Best Foreign Film sees Haneke's Amour pick up another nod, up against Chile's No, Canada's War Witch, Denmark's A Royal Affair and Norway's Kon-Tiki. As an aside, Best Picture winners have all, since about 1980, had a Best Editing nomination to match. The nominees in that category are Argo, Life Of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty - so consider those five the front-runners for Best Picture. Combine it with Best Director, another strong indicator, and the front-runners become Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Life Of Pi - all of which also get a Screenplay nod. Make your predictions accordingly. The full list of nominees is below: BEST PICTURE
Amour
Argo
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life Of Pi
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
BEST DIRECTOR
Life Of Pi - Ang Lee
Lincoln - Steven Spielberg
Amour - Michael Haneke
Silver Linings Playbook - David O. Russell
Beasts Of The Southern Wild - Benh Zeitlin
BEST ACTOR
Denzel Washington - Flight
Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln
Hugh Jackman - Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix - The Master BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin - Argo
Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained
Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln BEST ACTRESS
Emmanuelle Riva - Amour
Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty
Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Naomi Watts - The Impossible
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams - The Master
Anne Hathaway - Les Misérables
Helen Hunt - The Sessions
Sally Field - Lincoln
Jacki Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Brave
Frankenweenie
Paranorman
The Pirates! In An Adventure WIth Scientists
Wreck-it-Ralph BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Chris Terrio - Argo
Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin - Beasts Of The Southern Wild
David Magee - Life Of Pi
Tony Kushner - Lincoln
David O. Russell - Silver Linings Playbook BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Michael Haneke - Amour
Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained
Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola - Moonrise Kingdom
Mark Boal - Zero Dark Thirty
John Gatins - Flight
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Anna Karenina - Seamus McGarvey
Django Unchained - Robert Richardson
Life Of Pi - Claudio Miranda
Lincoln - Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall - Roger Deakins COSTUME DESIGN
Anna Karenina - Jacqueline Durran
Les Misérables - Paco Delgado
Lincoln - Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror - Eiko Ishioka
Snow White And The Huntsman - Colleen Atwood BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How To Survive A Plague
The Invisible War
Searching For Sugar Man BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays At Racine
Open Heart
Redemption BEST FILM EDITING
Argo - William Goldenberg
Life Of Pi - Tim Squyres
Zero Dark Thirty - Dylan Tichenor, William Goldenberg
Lincoln - Michael Kahn
Silver Linings Playbook - Jay Cassidy & Crispin Struthers
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Amour - Austria
Kon-Tiki - Norway
No - Chile
A Royal Affair - Denmark
War Witch - Canada BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Hitchcock - Julie Hewett, Martin Samuel, Howard Berger
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Peter Swords King, Richard Taylor, Rick Findlater
Les Misérables - Lisa Westcott BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Anna Karenina - Dario Marianelli
Argo - Alexandre Desplat
Life Of Pi - Mychael Danna
Lincoln - John Williams
Skyfall - Thomas Newman BEST ORIGINAL SONG
'Before My Time' from Chasing Ice
'Everybody Needs A Best Friend' from Ted
'Pi's Lullaby' from Life Of Pi
'Skyfall' from Skyfall
'Suddenly' from Les Miserables BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Life Of Pi
Lincoln
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head Over Heels
Maggie Simpson In "The Longest Daycare"
Paperman BEST LIVE FILM SHORT
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death Of A Shadow
Henry
BEST SOUND EDITING
Argo
Django Unchained
Life Of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty BEST SOUND MIXING
Argo
Les Miserables
Life Of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life Of Pi
Marvel Avengers Assemble
Prometheus
Snow White And The Huntsman | NOMINEES TALLY | | Lincoln | 12 | | Life Of Pi | 11 | | Les Miserables | 8 | | Silver Linings Playbook | 8 | | Argo | 7 | | Amour | 5 | | Django Unchained | 5 | | Zero Dark Thirty | 5 | | Skyfall | 5 | | Anna Karenina | 4 | | Beasts Of The Southern Wild | 4 | | The Master | 3 | | The Hobbit | 3 | | Flight | 2 | | Snow White And The Huntsman | 2 | | 
