King's Speech leads Oscar race with 12 nominations

The King’s Speech led the pack at the 83rd Oscar nominations announced this morning in Los Angeles with 12 nominations including best picture, director, actor, original screenplay and supporting actor and actress.

True Grit, shut out from the Golden Globes and DGA nominations, was the second big winner with 10 nominations including picture, director, screenplay, actor and supporting actress.

The Social Network and Inception took eight nominations apiece, while The Fighter won seven. Black Swan took five including picture, director and actress.

As expected Globe winners Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) were all nominated.

Among the surprises was a lead actor nomination for Javier Bardem for Biutiful;a supporting actor nomination for John Hawkes who played “Teardrop” in Winter’s Bone; and the nomination for Dogtooth, the Greek film by Giorgos Lanthimos which many considered too tough for the Academy’s foreign language committee.

Notable omissions include Ryan Gosling, overlooked for Blue Valentine; Lesley Manville, a critical favourite for Another Year; Christopher Nolan, who bagged producing and writing nods for Inception but not for direction; The Town which was a favourite for a best picture nomination; Andrew Garfield in the supporting actor category for The Social Network; and Mark Wahlberg as lead actor for The Fighter, although he did win a nomination for producing the film.

Sundance 2010 favourites The Kids Are All Right and Winter’s Bone had strong showings, both scoring best picture nominations as well as screenplay nods for their directors Lisa Cholodenko and Debra Granik respectively.

In the directing category, all were first time nominees aside from David Fincher who was nominated in 2008 for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and the Coen Brothers.

The documentary feature nominees were Exit Through The Gift Shop directed by iconic street artist Banksy and Jaimie d’Cruz, Wastelanddirected by Lucy Walker and Angus Anynsley, Inside Job directed by Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs, Restrepo directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, and Gasland directed by Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic. A surprise omission was the popular Waiting For Superman directed by Davis Guggenheim.

Last year’s best actor winner Jeff Bridges won his sixth nomination for True Grit, 1996 best actor Geoffrey Rush took his fourth for The King’s Speech, 2002 best actress Nicole Kidman her third for Rabbit Hole, Helena Bonham Carter her second for The King’s Speech and Michelle Williams her second for Blue Valentine.

Other repeat acting nominees were Melissa Leo for The Fighter, Amy Adams taking her third nomination for the same film and Jeremy Renner his second for The Town.

Mike Leigh won his seventh Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Another Year, while French-born Sylvain Chomet won his fourth for animated feature The Illusionist.

13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, who has most screen time of any character in True Grit was nominated in the supporting actress category.

Producer extraordinaire Scott Rudin won two nominations – for The Social Network and True Grit – and Toy Story 3 became only the third animated film in Academy history to win a best picture nomination. It was also nominated for best animated feature, best adapted screenplay, original song and sound editing.

The Coen brothers scored another three nominations each and join Warren Beatty, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Jackson and Oliver Stone as film-makers who have been nominated in those three categories in two films. Only Stanley Kubrick has been nominated in those three categories for three films. Joel and Ethan Coen have now been nominated for an Oscar 13 times. They have won four times.

In the foreign language category, Biutiful is the eighth nomination for Mexico, Dogtooth is the fifth nomination for Greece, In A Better World is the eighth nomination for Denmark, Incendies is the fifth for Canada and Outside The Law is the fifth for Algeria. Susanne Bier of In A Better World was previously nominated in 2006 for After The Wedding, Rachid Bouchareb (Outside The Law) in 2006 for Days Of Glory and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in 2000 for Amores Perros. Inarritu also received nominations for producing and directing Babel in 2006.

The nominees were announced very early this morning in Los Angeles, by last year’s Best Supporting Actress winner Mo’Nique and Academy President Tom Sherak. The Oscars will be awarded on Feb 27.

Stay tuned to ScreenDaily.com for more reactions.

BEST PICTURE
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Joel And Ethan Coen, True Grit
David O Russell, The Fighter

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
How To Train Your Dragon
Toy Story 3
The Illusionist

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit Through The Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Biutiful
Dogtooth
In A Better World
Incendies
Outside The Law (Hors la loi)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech

VISUAL EFFECTS
Alice In Wonderland
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2

ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
True Grit

COSTUME DESIGN
Alice In Wonderland
I Am Love
The King’s Speech
The Tempest
True Grit

FILM EDITING
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network

MAKEUP
Barney’s Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

ORIGINAL SCORE
How To Train Your Dragon
Inception
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network

ORIGINAL SONG
Coming Home, Country Song
I See The Light, Tangled
If I Rise, 127 Hours
We Belong Together, Toy Story 3

ANIMATED SHORT
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let’s Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

LIVE ACTION SHORT
The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Killing In The Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

SOUND EDITING
Inception
Toy Story 3
Tron: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

SOUND MIXING
Inception
The King’s Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit