Oscars 'Hustle' with 'Gravity'

“American Hustle” and “Gravity” dominate the Academy Awards nominations, earning 10 nods apiece, while “12 Years a Slave” followed with nine. All three are up for best picture and best director.

The top nominees – a con-artist comedy, a lost-in-space thriller and a harrowing depiction of slavery in America – have fortified their status as the front-runners for Oscar gold. All three have performed well, earning critics honours as well as wins at the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday.

“Captain Phillips”, “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Nebraska” each earned six nominations, including best picture. Rounding out the best-picture candidates, “Her” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” each had five nods and , “Philomena” had four.

The 86th Academy Awards are in a position to make Oscar history. If Steve McQueen wins best director for “12 Years a Slave”, he will be the first black filmmaker to do so.

The nominations are a Cinderella story of sorts for “Dallas Buyers Club”. Studios passed on the film – an intimate and poignant look at the Aids crisis in the 1980s – again and again. But the project was vindicated with a best picture nomination, plus nods for original screenplay and a first-time nomination for Matthew McConaughey in the lead actor category and Jared Leto in the supporting actor category.

In addition to McConaughey, the lead actor nominees are Christian Bale for “American Hustle”, Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Wolf of Wall Street”, Bruce Dern for “Nebraska” and Chiwetel Ejiofor for “12 Years a Slave”.

Lead actress contenders include Meryl Streep, extending her record as the performer with the most Academy Award nominations, with her 18th nod for playing a drug-added matriarch in “August: Osage County”. She last won two years ago, for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”. Before that she had not won for nearly three decades: in 1980 for best supporting actress in “Kramer vs. Kramer” and 1983 for best actress in “Sophie’s Choice”. 

Other nominees are Amy Adams for “American Hustle”, Cate Blanchett for “Blue Jasmine”, Sandra Bullock for “Gravity” and Judi Dench for “Philomena”.

Besides McQueen, best-director nominees are Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity”, David O Russell for “American Hustle”, Martin Scorsese for “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Alexander Payne for “Nebraska”.

Jennifer Lawrence, who won the lead actress Oscar last year for “Silver Linings Playbook”, is nominated again this year, in the supporting actress category for “American Hustle”. Bradley Cooper, who was nominated for lead actor last year for playing her “Silver Linings” leading man, also returns this year with a nomination in the supporting actor category for “American Hustle”.

If the 23-year-old Lawrence goes on to win, she’ll make history as the youngest woman ever to have two Academy Awards, and the first actress to win back-to-back Oscars since Katharine Hepburn accomplished that feat in the late 1960s.

Rounding out the supporting-actress nominees are Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”, Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave”, Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County” and June Squibb in “Nebraska”. If Squibb, 84, goes on to win, she’ll be the oldest performer to take home Oscar gold.

Nominated along with Cooper and Leto in the best supporting actor category are Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips”, Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave” and Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

Woody Allen added to his record for writing nominations with his 16th nod for “Blue Jasmine”. Other original screenplay nods went to “American Hustle”

by Eric Warren Singer and Russell, “Dallas Buyers Club” by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack, “Her” by Spike Jonze and “Nebraska” by Bob Nelson.

Adapted screenplay nominations are “Before Midnight” by by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, “Captain Phillips” by Billy Ray, “Philomena” by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, “12 Years a Slave” by John Ridley and “The Wolf of Wall Street” by Terence Winter.

Composer John Williams has the most nominations of any living person, with his 49th for “The Book Thief”. The only figure who has ever scored more is Walt Disney, who had 59 nominations, and won 22. 

Ellen DeGeneres, who hosted the Oscars in 2007, returns this year as the emcee of the ceremony on March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.