Avatar attracts nine Oscar nods

James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar has been nominated for nine Oscars, and will battle for the best film title with nine other titles, including the The Hurt Locker, directed by the Titanic helmsman's former wife Kathryn Bigelow, and itself up for nine statuettes.

The list of potential best movie laureates has been expanded from five to ten for the first time since 1944, and also features The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up and Up In The Air.

Avatar's nods are for Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Directing, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and, unsurprisingly, Visual Effects.*

JJ Abrams' Star Trek, meanwhile, makes its pitch for Oscar glory in the Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects categories.

The Actor in a Leading Role contenders are Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, George Clooney in Up in the Air, Colin Firth in A Single Man, Morgan Freeman in Invictus and Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker.

The women hoping their name is in the Actress in a Leading Role envelope are Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, Helen Mirren in The Last Station, Carey Mulligan in An Education, Gabourey Sidibe in Precious and Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia.

The 82nd Academy Awards are handed out on Sunday, 7 March at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre. There are full lists of nominations by category here, and by movie here. ®

Bootnote

* It's not, we note, in the running for Writing (Original Screenplay) gold.