American Hustle and Gravity lead Academy Awards nominations

As the nominations for the 86th annual Academy Awards are announced in Beverly Hills, California American Hustle and Gravity lead the way with 10 nominations each.

Gravity is up for 10 nominations at the Academy Awards. Warner Bros / AP Photo
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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 other nominees for best picture are the Somali pirating saga Captain Phillips; the HIV drama Dallas Buyers Club; Spike Jonze's tale of mobile phone love Her; the road trip film Nebraska, Philomena; a true life story about a woman's search for the child she lost to a Catholic nunnery and the controversial Martin Scorcese film of 1980s-era greed, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Philomena screened at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival last year while 12 Years a Slave was shown during the Dubai International Film Festival in December. American Hustle closed out the event.

A love story from the Palestinian territories and a Belgian drama of love, loss and bluegrass are among Academy Award nominees for best foreign-language film.

Hany Abu-Assad's Omar and Felix van Groeningen's Broken Circle Breakdown and are nominated alongside Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's love letter to Rome, The Great Beauty; psychological thriller The Hunt from Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg and The Missing Picture, an exploration of Pol Pot's bloody dictatorship by Cambodia's Rithy Panh.

The most notable omission for a nomination was Tom Hanks for his lead performance in Captain Phillips. 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.

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 other nominations are:

Best director: Russell, American Hustle; Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity; Alexander Payne, Nebraska; Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave; Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Lead actress in a motion picture: Amy Adams, American Hustle; Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine; Sandra Bullock, Gravity; Judi Dench, Philomena; and Meryl Streep, August: Osage County.

Lead actor in a motion picture: Christian Bale, American Hustle; Bruce Dern, Nebraska; Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street; Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave; Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club.

Supporting actress in a motion picture: Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine; Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle; Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave; Julia Roberts, August: Osage County; June Squibb, Nebraska.

Best supporting actor: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips; Bradley Cooper, American Hustle; Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave; Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street; Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club.

The 86th annual Academy Award nominations were announced in Beverly Hills, California, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Oscars will be presented March 2 from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres for the second time.

* Associated Press