'Lincoln' leads Oscar race with 12 nominations

Joining "Lincoln" for among Best Picture nominees are: "Argo," in which a CIA operative tries to evacuate Americans trapped in Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis by pretending to be a film crew, based on a true story; "Les Miserables," an adaptation of the stage musical of love and vengeance in France against a backdrop of revolution; and "Zero Dark Thirty," an account of the hunt and ultimate killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden.

Also nominated: "Amour," Michael Haneke's intimate portrayal of an aged couple grappling with illness and the specter of loss, a top-prize winner at Cannes and the European Film Awards; "Beasts of the Southern Wild," a Sundance favorite that uses magical realism to evoke a child's world in the Louisiana bayou; and "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's violent tale of bounty hunters and slaveowners; "Life of Pi," a mystical fable of a young man stranded on a ship's lifeboat with a voracious Bengal tiger; and "Silver Linings Playbook," a comedy-drama of a man released from a mental institution, probably prematurely.

Recent changes in Oscar rules for Best Picture ballots - which use preferential voting to tally a particular film's support, with each Academy member listing a maximum of five choice - mean that the number of first-place votes a particular film garners determines how many nominees there will be, between five and a maximum of 10. This year's roster indicates that other prospective nominees "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Master," "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Skyfall" failed to earn enough first-place ballots to qualify.

Daniel Day-Lewis (an Oscar winner for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood") received his fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Actor as the president in "Lincoln." He is joined by Bradley Cooper as a bipolar man trying to straighten out his life after a stint in a mental institution in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hugh Jackman as ex-con Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables"; Joaquin Phoenix as a WWII veteran who become the fiercest defender of a cult in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington (an Oscar-winner for "Glory" and "Training Day") as a pilot battling both an NTSB probe into a fatal plane crash and his own alcoholism in "Flight."

Among Best Actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst instrumental in the hunt for Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Jennifer Lawrence as a young widow who acts as a go-between for her bipolar friend and his estranged wife in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Emmanuelle Riva as an octogenarian stroke victim who is the center of her husband's universe in "Amour"; Quvenzhane Wallis as an imaginative and self-reliant child in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; and Naomi Watts as a wife and mother whose family is shattered by a natural disaster in "The Impossible";

Walls, who was just 5 when she first auditioned for the role in "Beasts" and who turned 9 after the movie opened, becomes the youngest female ever nominated in an acting category. The two previous youngest child nominees ever were Justin Henry (a Best Supporting actor node for "Kramer vs. Kramer" at age 8 years, 9 months), and Jackie Cooper (as Best Actor for "Skippy" at age 9 years).

Riva, whose film credits include "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Three Colors: Blue," becomes the oldest performer to receive a Best Actress nomination. (Previously, Best Actress winner Jessica Tandy for "Driving Miss Daisy" and nominee Edith Evans for "The Whisperers" were honored at age 80.