King's Speech leads Oscar nominees

Writer: Anne Jamaludin

Best actor nominee Colin Firth alongside best supporting actress nominee Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech".

26 Jan - The most prestigious award in Hollywood finally unveils its nominees for the 83rd Annual Academy Award to be held on Sunday, 27 February 2011 with Tom Hooper's film, "The King's Speech" leading the selection with 12 nominations – including best picture, best director, and acting noms for Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, as announced earlier at the Oscar's official website.

In terms of nomination counts, "Speech" topped Joel & Ethan Coen's "True Grit," which took 10 nominations, David Fincher's "The Social Network," and Christopher Nolan's "Inception" which both took 8 nominations each.

Both "The King's Speech" and "True Grit" are slated for February release in Malaysia and Singapore.

All four noted films were nominated for best picture, joining Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," David O. Russell's "The Fighter," Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right," Lee Unkrich's "Toy Story 3" and Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone."

While the nominations were generally pretty predictable at the accolade by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, there were definitely a few surprises this year and most notably, there was the snubs of Christopher Nolan for best director, Robert Duvall and Ryan Gosling for best actor, Lesley Manville for best actress, Andrew Garfield for best supporting actor, Mila Kunis for best supporting actress, "Waiting For 'Superman'" for best documentary feature and "Tangled" for best animated feature film.

Jeff Bridges and first-time Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfield in "True Grit"

Best actor nominee Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network"

Surprise (and mostly welcome) inclusions saw Giorgos Lanthimos's "Dogtooth" gets a foreign language film nomination, "I Am Love" getting a costume design nomination, "The Illusionist" being nominated for best animated feature, Javier Bardem and John Hawkes getting best actor and supporting actor and both "Gasland" and "Waste Land" for best documentary.

The best documentary category saw 4 of 5 nominees come from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, which is currently in the midst of its 2011 edition with "Winter's Bone," "The Kids Are All Right," "Blue Valentine," and "Animal Kingdom" as other 2010 Sundance films to receive major nominations.

This year, "127 Hours" actor James Franco and "Love And Other Drugs" actress Anne Hathaway are co-hosting the ceremony which will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California.