"The Artist" and "Hugo," two films about the early days of cinema that have been winning awards and nominations all season, have each received 11 nominations to lead the field at the Critics Choice Movie Awards, which announced its nominees early Tuesday morning.
But if it's no surprise that those films garnered the most noms from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the two films with the next-highest number might come as a shock.
One is "The Help" (left), Tate Taylor's Civil Rights-era drama considered far more of an audience favorite than a critics' choice. The other is "Drive" (below), Nicolas Winding Refn's dark and unconventional action/art movie, which sits well outside the Top 10 in most pundits' polls.
Also read: After a Day of Critics Honors, the Awards Race Is Still a Confusing Mess
Rounding out the CCMA Best Picture category, which generally coincides almost exactly with the Academy's, are "The Descendants," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "Midnight in Paris," "Moneyball," "The Tree of Life" and "War Horse."
Best Director candidates are Stephen Daldry for "Incredibly Loud," Michel Hazanavicius for "The Artist," Alexander Payne for "The Descendants," Refn for "Drive," Martin Scorsese for "Hugo" and Steven Spielberg for "War Horse."
The acting categories, each of which contained six nominees, include most of the top Oscar contenders: George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jean Dujardin, Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt in the Best Actor category, Viola Davis, Elizabeth Olsen, Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron and Michelle Williams for Best Actress.
Conspicuously missing in the acting races: Best Actress contenders Glenn Close ("Albert Nobbs"), Rooney Mara ("The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo") and Kirsten Dunst ("Melancholia"), and Best Actor hopefuls Woody Harrelson ("Rampart") and Gary Oldman ("Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy").
In fact, "Tinker, Tailor" might have been the most conspicuously absent film of all, as it failed to land a single nomination. Other films missing from the list of nominees include "Margin Call," "Contagion," "Take Shelter," "A Dangerous Method" and "Melancholia."
In the Best Animated Feature category, Pixar's "Cars 2" was not nominated, ending a string of category wins for the company.
Andy Serkis (strangely called "Andrew" in the BFCA press release) received a Supporting Actor nomination for his motion-capture performance as the chimpanzee Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," while Shailene Woodley was honored twice for "The Descendants" – once in the Supporting Actress category, and again in the Best Young Actor/Actress category.
Her co-star George Clooney received three nods – one as Best Actor, and two others as part of Best Ensemble nominees "The Descendants" and "The Ides of March." Clooney now holds the CCMA record with 13 nominations.
In the Best Documentary Feature race, Steve James's "The Interrupters" was once again overlooked in favor of a lineup that includes "Project Nim," "Buck" and Scorsese's two part made-for-HBO George Harrison doc, "Living in the Material World."
