With 10 nominations each, "American Hustle" and "Gravity" are proving to be strong contenders for the Academy Awards scheduled to be held on March 2.
Motion Picture Arts and Science announced the nominees for its 86th awards show, which will be hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, on Thursday, and both the movies have received nods in top categories.
In addition to being nominated in best picture and best director categories, all the lead actors of the crime-comedy drama have also received top nods. While Amy Adams and Christian Bale have been nominated in the best actress and actor categories, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper have been recognized for their supporting roles.
Space thriller "Gravity" has earned director Alfonso Cuaron a nomination for best director and it is also a strong contender in the best picture category. Sandra Bullock, whose stunning performance as Dr. Ryan Stone in the movie has been lauded by critics, has a spot in the best actress category.
Reacting to the news, Bullock told USA Today: "I'm sitting here with an (expletive)-eating grin on my face. I can only go back to when I first met (director) Alfonso (Cuarón) and I told him I didn't want to work and I was in Austin. I had to act by myself in white boxes, black boxes, hanging from ceilings. You look at all this stuff and you go, isn't life just amazing? I was given the sweetest life lesson and experience in this movie. Now you get news of this."
Interestingly, Bullock's nomination was not unexpected, as industry sources have long been pitching her as a possible Oscar nominee, and many are sure of Bullock winning the award.
Stating one of the main reasons why Bullock could win the Oscars again (she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Blind Side in 2010), Variety's Ramin Setoodeh wrote that she was the most bankable actress in Hollywood today, because "since 2009, she's had four films with a domestic box office gross of more than $100 million."
