Oscar Nominees Announced, 'Hugo' Leads With 11
Karen Moltenbrey
January 24, 2012

Oscar Nominees Announced, 'Hugo' Leads With 11

HOLLYWOOD — After a lot of hype, positioning, and debate, the short-list nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards were revealed, with director Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” garnering the most nods at 11 nominations, including that for Best Picture and for Best Visual Effects.
Other films now vying for the gold in the Visual Effects category alongside “Hugo” are: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” “Real Steel,” “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” No longer in the hunt are “Captain America,” "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” “The Tree of Life,” and “X-Men,” which made the top 10 but failed to get on the short list. 

For Animated Feature Film, two foreign features with an atypical style for 2011 made the list—"A Cat in Paris," a hand-drawn movie from France, and "Chico & Rita," a cartoony ink-and-paint style film from Spain. These join three CGI features from the US: "Kung Fu Panda 2," "Puss in Boots," and "Rango." Perhaps surprising is the fact that “Tintin,” which bested “Rango” and “Puss in Boots,” as well as “Cars 2” and “Arthur Christmas,” recently for a Golden Globe, was left out off the list. Notable, too, is that “Cars 2,” a Disney-Pixar film, did not make it, either. 

The nominations in 10 of the 24 Award categories were announced live by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak and 2010 Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence. Lists of nominations in all the categories were then released.

Academy members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees in their respective categories – actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, and so forth. In the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, nominations are selected by vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees.

Nominations ballots were mailed to the 5,783 voting members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

Official screenings of all motion pictures with one or more nominations will begin for members the weekend of January 28 at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings also will be held at the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

All active and life members of the Academy are eligible to select the winners in all categories, although in five of them – Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, and Foreign Language Film – members can vote only if they have seen all of the nominated films in those categories.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

The following is a complete list of nominees:

Actor in a Leading Role 

•  Demián Bichir in "A Better Life"
•  George Clooney in "The Descendants"
•  Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"
•  Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
•  Brad Pitt in "Moneyball"

Actor in a Supporting Role
•  Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn"
•  Jonah Hill in "Moneyball"
•  Nick Nolte in "Warrior"
•  Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"
•  Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

Actress in a Leading Role
•  Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs"
•  Viola Davis in "The Help"
•  Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
•  Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady"
•  Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn"

Actress in a Supporting Role
•  Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"
•  Jessica Chastain in "The Help"
•  Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"
•  Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"
•  Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Animated Feature Film
•  "A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
•  "Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
•  "Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
•  "Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
•  "Rango" Gore Verbinski

Art Direction
•  "The Artist" Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
•  "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
•  "Hugo" Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
•  "Midnight in Paris" Production Design: Anne Seibel; Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
•  "War Horse" Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales

Cinematography
•  "The Artist" Guillaume Schiffman
•  "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Jeff Cronenweth
•  "Hugo" Robert Richardson
•  "The Tree of Life" Emmanuel Lubezki
•  "War Horse" Janusz Kaminski

Costume Design
•  "Anonymous" Lisy Christl
•  "The Artist" Mark Bridges
•  "Hugo" Sandy Powell
•  "Jane Eyre" Michael O'Connor
•  "W.E." Arianne Phillips

Directing
•  "The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius
•  "The Descendants" Alexander Payne
•  "Hugo" Martin Scorsese
•  "Midnight in Paris" Woody Allen
•  "The Tree of Life" Terrence Malick

Documentary (Feature)
•  "Hell and Back Again" Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
•  "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
•  "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
•  "Pina" Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
•  "Undefeated" TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Documentary (Short Subject)
•  "The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement" Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
•  "God Is the Bigger Elvis" Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
•  "Incident in New Baghdad" James Spione
•  "Saving Face" Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
•  "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom" Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Film Editing
•  "The Artist" Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
•  "The Descendants" Kevin Tent
•  "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
•  "Hugo" Thelma Schoonmaker
•  "Moneyball" Christopher Tellefsen

Foreign Language Film
•  "Bullhead" Belgium
•  "Footnote" Israel
•  "In Darkness" Poland
•  "Monsieur Lazhar" Canada
•  "A Separation" Iran

Makeup
•  "Albert Nobbs" Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
•  "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
•  "The Iron Lady" Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Music (Original Score)
•  "The Adventures of Tintin" John Williams
•  "The Artist" Ludovic Bource
•  "Hugo" Howard Shore
•  "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Alberto Iglesias
•  "War Horse" John Williams

Music (Original Song)
•  "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
•  "Real in Rio" from "Rio" Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett

Best Picture
•  "The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
•  "The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
•  "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
•  "The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
•  "Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
•  "Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
•  "Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
•  "The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
•  "War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Short Film (Animated)
•  "Dimanche/Sunday" Patrick Doyon
•  "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
•  "La Luna" Enrico Casarosa
•  "A Morning Stroll" Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
•  "Wild Life" Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Short Film (Live Action)
•  "Pentecost" Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane
•  "Raju" Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
•  "The Shore" Terry George and Oorlagh George
•  "Time Freak" Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
•  "Tuba Atlantic" Hallvar Witzø

Sound Editing
•  "Drive" Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
•  "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Ren Klyce
•  "Hugo" Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
•  "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
•  "War Horse" Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing
•  "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
•  "Hugo" Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
•  "Moneyball" Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
•  "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
•  "War Horse" Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects
•  "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
•  "Hugo" Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
•  "Real Steel" Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
•  "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
•  "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
•  "The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
•  "Hugo" Screenplay by John Logan
•  "The Ides of March" Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
•  "Moneyball" Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin  Story by Stan Chervin
•  "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

Writing (Original Screenplay)
•  "The Artist" Written by Michel Hazanavicius
•  "Bridesmaids" Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
•  "Margin Call" Written by J.C. Chandor
•  "Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen
•  "A Separation" Written by Asghar Farhadi