By Ray Bennett
“American Hustle” and “Gravity” picked up 10 nominations apiece including best picture to lead the pack in the Academy Awards to be presented on March 2.
David O. Russell was nominated as best director for “American Hustle” (pictured), which also earned nods in all the acting categories – Christian Bale as best actor, Amy Adams as best actress, Bradley Cooper as best supporting actor, and Jennifer Lawrence as best supporting actress.
Alfonso Cuaron was nominated as best director for “Gravity” with Sandra Bullock up for best actress. Steve McQueen was nominated as best director for “12 Years a Slave”, which picked up nine nominations including best picture, best actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor, best supporting actor for Michael Fassbender and best supporting actress for Lupita Nyong’o.
Other British nominees included “Philomena” as best picture with star Judi Dench as best actress, Sally Hawkins as best supporting actress for “Blue Jasmine”, and Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for adapted screenplay for “Philomena”.
The nine films nominated as best picture also include “Captain Phillips”, “Dallas Buyers Club”, “Her”, “Nebraska”, and “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
Bruce Dern for “Nebraska”, Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Matthew McConaughey for “Dallas Buyers Club” round out the list of nominees for best actor. Meryl Streep is also nominated as best actress for “August: Osage County”.
The other actors nominated for supporting roles are Barkhad Abdi for “Captain Phillips”, Jonah Hill for “The Wolf of Wall Street”, and Jared Leto for “Dallas Buyers Club”. The other best supporting actress nominees are Julia Roberts for “August: Osage County” and June Squibb for “Nebraska”.
Also on the best director list are Alexander Payne for “Nebraska” and Martin Scorsese for “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Animated feature nominees are “The Croods”, “Despicable Me 2”, “Ernest & Celestine”, “Frozen” and “The Wind Rises”.
Best foreign language nominees are Belgium’s “The Broken Circle Breakdown”, Italy’s “The Great Beauty”, Denmark’s “The Hunt”, Cambodia’s “The Missing Picture” and Palestine’s “Omar”.
Original score nominations went to John Williams for “The Book Thief”, Steven Price for “Gravity”, William Butler and Owen Pallett for “Her”, Alexandre Desplat for “Philomena”, and Thomas Newman for “Saving Mr. Banks”. – By Ray Bennett
This story appears in Cue Entertainment