James Cameron’s Avatar – the biggest film of all time – bagged two big nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards, which were just announced in Los Angeles, but it hasn’t dominated as expected.

Cameron’s epic has been nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, and picked up a raft of technical nominations. But it was overlooked in most other categories, including Screenplay and, while it remains the favourite to take the main prize, faces some serious competition from The Hurt Locker – directed, of course, by his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow - going into the March 7 ceremony. But the likes of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air, the surprise Sandra Bullock smash, The Blind Side, and Lee Daniels’ Precious, can’t be discounted.

The nominations – announced this year by Anne Hathaway, along with Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president, Tom Sherak – also included, for the first time in decades, ten Best Picture nominees. Beyond the usual suspects, that allowed the Academy leeway to spring some surprises, with the likes of District 9, the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man and Pixar’s Up getting unexpected nods. The full list of Best Picture nominees is Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Precious, Inglourious Basterds, Up In The Air, Up, A Serious Man, The Blind Side, District 9 and An Education.

Up’s nomination means it’s the first animated movie to bag a Best Picture nomination since Beauty And The Beast back in 1992. It’s also nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, alongside The Princess And The Frog, Coraline and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Ten into five does not go, however, meaning that five directors had to miss out on nominations in the Best Director category. Cameron, Bigelow, who won the DGA Best Director prize a few days ago and might be seen as the frontrunner, Reitman, Tarantino and Lee Daniels all got the nod.

Best Actress saw few surprises, with Sandra Bullock, for The Blind Side, Carey Mulligan, for An Education, Gabourey Sidibe, for Precious, Helen Mirren for The Last Station and Meryl Streep’s customary nomination for Julie & Julia, all making the list. There was no place for Avatar’s Zoe Saldana.

The Best Actor nominees were Jeff Bridges, for Crazy Heart, George Clooney for Up In The Air, Morgan Freeman for Invictus, Colin Firth for A Single Man and Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker.

The supporting actor/actress categories threw up the odd surprise – Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones is one we didn’t really see coming – but otherwise it was pretty predictable, with Christoph Waltz, Christopher Plummer, Woody Harrelson, and Matt Damon filling out the Best Supporting Actor categories, while Mo’nique, Maggie Gyllenhaal, the Up In The Air pair of Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga and Penelope Cruz secured the Best Supporting Actress slots.

And, if there was some concern about Oscar co-hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin not being fully focused on the night, that’s now been dissipated as neither was nominated for It’s Complicated.

The List So Far:

BEST DIRECTOR
James Cameron, Avatar
Katherine Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarentino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up In The Air

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up In The Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker


BEST PICTURE
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In the Air


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Neil Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell, District 9
Neil Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In The Loop
Geofrey Fletcher, Precious
Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Up In The Air


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Up

ART DIRECTION
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

COSTUME DESIGN
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

DOCUMENTARY SHORT
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of A GM Plant
Music By Prudence
Rabbit A La Berlin

FILM EDITING
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Ajami
El Secreto
Desus Ojos
The Milk of Sorrow
A Prophet
The White Ribbon

MAKE-UP
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

MUSIC: ORIGINAL SCORE
Avatar
Fantastic Mr Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

MUSIC: ORIGINAL SONG
The Princess and The Frog – Almost There
The Princess and The Frog – Down In New Orleans
Paris 36 – Loin de Panane
Nine – Take It All
Crazy Heart – The Weary Kind

SHORT FILM: ANIMATED
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady And The Reaper
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

SHORT FILM: LIVE ACTION
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

SOUND EDITING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
The Princess And The Frog
The Secret Of Kells
Up


/Empire Online/