Academy Awards, Awards Season | featured news

For the first time in 40 years, the host of the Academy Awards will help announce the Oscar nominations....

The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards are out and below is the full list. This year, nine films are contending for BEST PICTURE instead of the usual five. Hugo leads all contenders with 11 nominations; The Artist has 10 nominations; Moneyball and War Horse both have 6 noms; The Descendants and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tie with five noms; The Help and Midnight in Paris have four each.

One day after Eddie Murphy stepped aside as host, the Academy named a replacement with Oscar experience, moving quickly to fill another key role that had been vacated this week.

Surprise! During a meeting of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors on Tuesday night, it was decided that the Best Picture voting system would be changed to allow for anywhere from five to ten nominees in a given year, depending on the quality of films available. The exact number of Best Picture participants won’t be announced until the nominations are revealed in January.

Oscar prospects brightened for "The King's Speech," as the film's producers - Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin - won the top award for makers of a theatrical motion picture from the Producers Guild of America on Saturday night.

The National Board of Review, widely considered a harbinger of the Academy Awards, has chosen "The Social Network" as the best film of the year.

The 2012 Oscars will not be weeks earlier than usual, as had been speculated - a move that would have upended Hollywood's crowded awards season.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Science-fiction adventure "Avatar" and war movie "The Hurt Locker" on Tuesday earned nine Oscar nominations each, including best movie, to lead the field in the competition for the world's highest film honors.

The science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" won best drama at the Golden Globes and picked up the directing honor for James Cameron on Sunday, raising the "Titanic" filmmaker's prospects for another Academy Awards triumph.

It's not a household name, for sure. But this two-time Academy Award winner (for "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "Mrs. Doubtfire") is the red-hot favorite to win the Oscar in the best makeup category, for his work taking Brad Pitt from decrepitude to infancy in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."