The con-artist comedy “American Hustle” and the 3-D space odyssey “Gravity” lead the Academy Awards with 10 nominations each, with the historical epic “12 Years a Slave” trailing closely with nine nominations.

The nominations announced Thursday set up a race between three very different films, all of which were nominated for best picture. The 86th annual Academy Awards will take place March 2.

Mexican-born “Gravity” director Alfonso Cuaron and British-born “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen both received best director nominations.

Nine films were nominated for best picture. The other nominees are “Captain Phillips,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Her,” “Nebraska,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and the British film “Philomena.”

The nominations for best foreign language film are “The Broken Circle Breakdown” from Belgium, “The Great Beauty” from Italy, “The Hunt” from Denmark, “The Missing Picture” from Cambodia and “Omar” from the Palestinian territories.

The most notable omission for a nomination was Tom Hanks for his lead performance in “Captain Phillips.” Hanks is widely beloved by the academy, having been nominated five times previously, winning for “Forest Gump” and “Philadelphia.”

Robert Redford, expected by many to be nominated for the shipwreck drama “All Is Lost,” also missed out on a best actor nod. Redford has never won an acting Oscar.

The best actor nominees are British-born Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), Bruce Dern (“Nebraska”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“The Wolf of Wall Street”), Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”) and Christian Bale (“American Hustle”).

Disney’s making of “Mary Poppins” tale “Saving Mr. Banks” also failed to land either a best picture nomination or a best actress nod for British-born Emma Thompson.



The best actress nominees are Amy Adams (“American Hustle’”), Australian-born Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”), Sandra Bullock (“Gravity”), British-born Judi Dench (“Philomena”) and Meryl Streep (“August: Osage County”).

This is Streep’s 18th nomination, including three wins.

Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a nearly three-hour Wall Street extravaganza of money, sex and drugs, landed big nominations: best picture, best actor (DiCaprio), best director (Scorsese, his eighth for directing) and best supporting actor (Jonah Hill).

Also doing well Thursday were Spike Jonze’s futuristic romance “Her” (five nominations, including best original screenplay for Jonze) and Alexander Payne’s black-and-white road trip “Nebraska” (six nominations, including best director for Payne).

One of the day’s biggest winners was 27-year-old producer Megan Ellison, the daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison. Her Annapurna Pictures produced two of the best-picture nominees (“American Hustle” and “Her”) as well as Chinese-born Wong Kar-Wai’s martial arts drama “The Grandmaster.” She celebrated by tweeting “17!” ― the total nominations her films received.

Though historically the most-nominated films have taken home the best picture award, that’s not been the case in recent years. Six of the last 10 years the most-nominated film hasn’t won in the end, including last year when Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” with 12 nominations, was beaten by Ben Affleck’s “Argo.” (AP)