LINCOLN leads all Oscar nominees for the 2013 Academy Awards

Nominees were announced moments ago for the 85th Academy Awards, to be presented live on Oscar Sunday, February 24, 2013 at 7 p.m. ET.  And if I were Ben Affleck, I’d be going over a list in my head of the people I’ve pissed off the past year. Affleck’s “Argo” received seven nominations, including ones for Best Picture and Film Editing, but he was snubbed in the Directing category.

Steven Spielberg, who knows a thing or two about snubs, saw his sprawling historical drama “Lincoln” pull down the most nominations—12—missing only Best Supporting Actress among the top categories.

Surprisingly, Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” was right on Mr. Lincoln’s heels with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Directing, Cinematography, Film Editing, Music (both Score and Song), Visual Effects, and Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

“Silver Linings Playbook” came in third with eight nominations, including Best Picture, Directing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Actor, and Actress. It’s the first time in a long time that a romantic comedy-drama pulled down so many nominations.

Meanwhile, “Les Misérables,” another other high-profile release, received seven nominations. Joining Anne Hathaway, who had the nomination for Best Supporting Actress sewn up the minute she finished filming, was Hugh Jackman, who got a Best Actor nod. But while “Les Miz” was also nominated for Best Picture, Tom Hooper was ignored for his direction. I’m guessing he and Affleck are already texting each other to commiserate.

Other surprises? “Paranorman” was nominated for Best Animated Feature along with “Brave,” “Frankenweenie,” “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Totally ignored: “Rise of the Guardians.”

As for other high-profile releases, Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” earned a Best Picture nomination but none for Tarantino’s direction—only Cinematography, Sound Editing, and Writing (Original Screenplay). And "Zero Dark Thirty," about the mission that took out Bin Laden, earned five nominations: Best Picture, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Sound Editing, Film Editing, and Best Actress.

Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, who won an Oscar for his work on “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” wasn’t even nominated for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which only received three nominations (Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Visual Effects).

Fans of “The Dark Knight Rises” can meet Lesnie and Affleck and Hooper in the pub. Christopher Nolan’s action crime drama netted nary a nomination. But “Skyfall,” the latest Bond entry, earned nominations for Cinematography, Music (both Score and Song), Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, other than the emergence of the Austrian film "Amour" (with five nominations, including Best Picture), was the audacious little indie pic, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which earlier stirred the controversy pot by featuring non-actors who weren’t paid scale. It earned four nominations: Best Picture, Directing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), and a Best Actress nomination for little Quvenzhané Wallis, a nine-year-old Louisiana schoolgirl whose profile has been raised considerably since the film was released (interview).  

When she co-hosted the Oscars Anne Hathaway joked about not getting a Best Actress nomination for her performance “Love & Other Drugs,” saying, “It used to be, you get naked, you get nominated. Helen Hunt has to be smiling, because she was nominated for “The Sessions,” in which she played a sex therapist who indeed is shown on camera fully nude. The Best Actress category will have a first-time winner this year, whether it's Wallis, Hunt, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, or Naomi Watts. 

This year’s Oscar host Seth MacFarlane and actress Emma Stone announced the nominees at a 5:38 a.m. Pacific Time news conference attended by more than 400 international media representatives.

Here they are by category:

BEST PICTURE

• Amour (TBD, Producer)
• Argo (Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Producers)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers)
• Django Unchained (Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone, Producers)
• Les Misérables (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward and Cameron Mackintosh, Producers)
• Life of Pi (Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, Producers)
• Lincoln (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen and Jonathan Gordon, Producers)
• Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison, Producers)

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
• Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
• Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
• Denzel Washington (Flight)

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Alan Arkin (ARGO)
• Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
• Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
• Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
• Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
• Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
• Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
• Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Amy Adams (The Master)
• Sally Field (Lincoln)
• Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
• Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
• Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman)
• Frankenweenie (Tim Burton)
• Paranorman (Sam Fell and Chris Butler)
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Peter Lord)
• Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Anna Karenina (Seamus McGarvey)
• Django Unchained (Robert Richardson)
• Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
• Lincoln (Janusz Kaminski)
• Skyfall (Roger Deakins)

COSTUME DESIGN

• Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Durran)
• Les Misérables (Paco Delgado)
• Lincoln (Joanna Johnston)
• Mirror Mirror (Eiko Ishioka)
• Snow White and the Huntsman (Colleen Atwood)

DIRECTING

• Amour (Michael Haneke)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
• Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
• Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
• Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• 5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi)
• The Gatekeepers (TBD)
• How to Survive a Plague (TBD)
• The Invisible War (TBD)
• Searching for Sugar Man (TBD)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

• Inocente (Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine)
• Kings Point (Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider)
• Mondays at Racine (Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan)
• Open Heart (Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern)
• Redemption (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill)

FILM EDITING

• Argo (William Goldenberg)
• Life of Pi (Tim Squyres)
• Lincoln (Michael Kahn)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers)
• Zero Dark Thirty (Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Amour (Austria)
• Kon-Tiki (Norway)
• No (Chile)
• A Royal Affair (Denmark)
• War Witch (Canada)

MAKEUP AND HAIR DESIGN

• Hitchcock (Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel)
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane)
• Les Misérables (Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell)

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

• Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
• Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
• Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
• Lincoln (John Williams)
• Skyfall (Thomas Newman)

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

• Before My Time (Chasing Ice, J. Ralph)
• Everybody Needs a Best Friend (Ted, Walter Murphy/Seth MacFarlane)
• Pi’s Lullaby (Life of Pi, Mychael Danna/Bombay Jayashri)
• Skyfall (Skyfall, Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth)
• Suddenly (Les Misérables, Claude-Michel Schönberg
/Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil)

PRODUCTION DESIGN/SET DECORATION

• Anna Karenina (Sarah Greenwood/Katie Spencer)
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dan Hennah
/Ra vincent and Simon Bright)
• Les Misérables (Eve Stewart
/Anna Lynch-Robinson)
• Life of Pi (David Gropman/Anna Pinnock)
• Lincoln (Rick Carter/Jim Erickson)

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

• Adam and Dog  (Minkyu Lee)
• Fresh Guacamole (PES)
• Head over Heels (Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly)
• Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” (David Silverman)
• Paperman (John Kahrs)

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

• Asad (Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura)
• Buzkashi Boys (Sam French and Ariel Nasr)
• Curfew (Shawn Christensen)
• Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) (Tom van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele)
• Henry (Yan England)

SOUND EDITING

• Argo (Erik Aadahl and Ethan van der Ryn)
• Django Unchained (Wylie Stateman)
• Life of Pi (Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton)
• Skyfall (Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers)
• Zero Dark Thirty (Paul N.J. Ottosson)

SOUND MIXING

• Argo (John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia)
• Les Misérables (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes)
• Life of Pi (Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin)
• Lincoln (Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins)
• Skyfall (Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson)

VISUAL EFFECTS

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White)
• Life of Pi (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott)
• Marvel’s The Avengers (Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick)
• Prometheus (Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill)
• Snow White and the Huntsman (Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson)

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

• Argo (Chris Terrio)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin)
• Life of Pi (David Magee)
• Lincoln (Tony Kushner)
• Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Amour (Michael Haneke)
• Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
• Flight (John Gatins)
• Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola)
• Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal)