The Civil War saga "Lincoln" leads the Academy Awards with 12 nominations, including best picture, director for Steven Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

Also among the nine nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story "Amour"; the Iran hostage thriller "Argo"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the musical "Les Miserables"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook"; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle "Zero Dark Thirty."

"Life of Pi" surprisingly ran second with 11 nominations, ahead of "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Les Miserables," which had both been considered potential front-runners.

More surprising were snubs in the directing category, where three favorites missed out: Ben Affleck for "Argo" and past Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Tom Hooper for "Les Miserables."

Two-time winner Spielberg earned his seventh directing nomination, and also in the mix are past winner Ang Lee for "Life of Pi" and past nominee David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook." The other slots went to surprise picks who are first-time nominees: Michael Haneke for "Amour" and Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Chronicling Abraham Lincoln's final months as he engineers passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, "Lincoln" stars best-actor contender Day-Lewis in a monumental performance as the 16th president, supporting-actress nominee Field as the notoriously headstrong Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting-actor prospect Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Joining Day-Lewis in the best-actor field are Bradley Cooper as a psychiatric patient trying to get his life back together in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hugh Jackman as Victor Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables"; Joaquin Phoenix as a Navy vet who falls in with a cult in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

Nominated for best actress are Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative hunting bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow struggling to heal in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Emmanuelle Riva as an ailing woman tended by her husband in "Amour"; Quvenzhane Wallis as a spirited girl on the Louisiana delta in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; and Naomi Watts as a mother caught up in a devastating tsunami in "The Impossible."

Along with Field, supporting-actress nominees are Amy Adams as a cult leader's devoted wife in "The Master"; Anne Hathaway as an outcast mother reduced to prostitution in "Les Miserables"; Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate in "The Sessions"; and Jacki Weaver as an unstable man's doting mom in "Silver Linings Playbook."

Besides Jones, the supporting-actor contenders are Alan Arkin as a wily Hollywood producer in "Argo"; Robert De Niro as a football-obsessed patriarch in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Philip Seymour Hoffman as a dynamic cult leader in "The Master"; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in "Django Unchained."

The Oscars feature a best-picture field that ranges from five to 10 films depending on a complex formula of ballots from the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

"Family Guy" creator and vocal star Seth MacFarlane _ a versatile performer whose work includes directing and voicing for the title character of last summer's hit "Ted" and a Frank Sinatra-style album of standards _ is the Oscar host.

Thursday's nominees were announced by "The Amazing Spider-Man" star Emma Stone and MacFarlane, the first time that an Oscar show host has joined in the preliminary announcement since 1972, when Charlton Heston participated on nominations day.

MacFarlane also got his own nod for writing the lyrics to "Everybody Needs A Best Friend" from his movie "Ted."

"That's kind of cool I got nominated," MacFarlane deadpanned. "I get to go to the Oscars."

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Online:

http://www.oscars.org