(CBS News) BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's drama of the 16th president's fight to eradicate slavery, leads the race for this year's Academy Awards, with 12 nominations, including Best Picture.
Close behind was fellow Best Picture nominee "Life of Pi," Ang Lee's mystical fable of a young man stranded on a ship's lifeboat with a voracious Bengal tiger, which received 11 nominations.
Joining them in the Best Picture category are: "Les Miserables," an adaptation of the stage musical of love and vengeance in France against a backdrop of revolution, which earned 8 nominations total; "Argo," winner of seven nominations, in which a CIA operative tries to evacuate Americans trapped in Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis by pretending to be a film crew, based on a true story; and "Zero Dark Thirty" (five nominations), an account of the hunt and ultimate killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden.
Also nominated: "Amour," Michael Haneke's intimate portrayal of an aged couple grappling with illness and the specter of loss, a top-prize winner at Cannes and the European Film Awards; "Beasts of the Southern Wild," a Sundance favorite that uses magical realism to evoke a child's world in the Louisiana bayou; and "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's violent tale of bounty hunters and slaveowners; and "Silver Linings Playbook," a comedy-drama of a man released from a mental institution, probably prematurely.
List of 2013 Oscar nominations
Recent changes in Oscar rules for Best Picture ballots - which use preferential voting to tally a particular film's support, with each Academy member listing a maximum of five choice - mean that the number of first-place votes a particular film garners determines how many nominees there will be, between five and a maximum of 10. This year's roster indicates that other prospective nominees "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Master," "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Skyfall" failed to earn enough first-place ballots to qualify.
Edelstein on the ravishingly strange "Life of Pi"
N.Y. film critics pick "Zero Dark Thirty" as year's best
Edelstein: "Zero Dark Thirty" no easy moral tale
Spielberg was nominated for his seventh Best Director Oscar (he has won the award twice, for "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan"). He was joined by Michael Haneke, "Amour"; Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; Ang Lee, "Life of Pi"; and David O. Russell, "Silver Linings Playbook.
Among Thursday's surprises were the absences of two of the ;leading Best Picture contenders' director: Tom Hooper of "Les Miserables" and Kathryn Bigelow of "Zero Dark Thirty." Also missing from the Best Director lineup were Quentin Tarantino ("Django Unchained") and Wes Anderson ("Moonrise Kingdom"), although each received Best Original Screenplay nominations.
Close behind was fellow Best Picture nominee "Life of Pi," Ang Lee's mystical fable of a young man stranded on a ship's lifeboat with a voracious Bengal tiger, which received 11 nominations.
Joining them in the Best Picture category are: "Les Miserables," an adaptation of the stage musical of love and vengeance in France against a backdrop of revolution, which earned 8 nominations total; "Argo," winner of seven nominations, in which a CIA operative tries to evacuate Americans trapped in Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis by pretending to be a film crew, based on a true story; and "Zero Dark Thirty" (five nominations), an account of the hunt and ultimate killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden.
Also nominated: "Amour," Michael Haneke's intimate portrayal of an aged couple grappling with illness and the specter of loss, a top-prize winner at Cannes and the European Film Awards; "Beasts of the Southern Wild," a Sundance favorite that uses magical realism to evoke a child's world in the Louisiana bayou; and "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's violent tale of bounty hunters and slaveowners; and "Silver Linings Playbook," a comedy-drama of a man released from a mental institution, probably prematurely.
List of 2013 Oscar nominations
Recent changes in Oscar rules for Best Picture ballots - which use preferential voting to tally a particular film's support, with each Academy member listing a maximum of five choice - mean that the number of first-place votes a particular film garners determines how many nominees there will be, between five and a maximum of 10. This year's roster indicates that other prospective nominees "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Master," "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Skyfall" failed to earn enough first-place ballots to qualify.
Edelstein on the ravishingly strange "Life of Pi"
N.Y. film critics pick "Zero Dark Thirty" as year's best
Edelstein: "Zero Dark Thirty" no easy moral tale
Spielberg was nominated for his seventh Best Director Oscar (he has won the award twice, for "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan"). He was joined by Michael Haneke, "Amour"; Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; Ang Lee, "Life of Pi"; and David O. Russell, "Silver Linings Playbook.
Among Thursday's surprises were the absences of two of the ;leading Best Picture contenders' director: Tom Hooper of "Les Miserables" and Kathryn Bigelow of "Zero Dark Thirty." Also missing from the Best Director lineup were Quentin Tarantino ("Django Unchained") and Wes Anderson ("Moonrise Kingdom"), although each received Best Original Screenplay nominations.