Imelda and Kate named for Oscars

Kate Winslet and Imelda Staunton lead the British nominations at this year's Academy Awards.

Kate Winslet and Imelda Staunton lead the British nominations at this year's Academy Awards.

Both are in the running for best actress - Winslet for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Staunton for Vera Drake.

Clive Owen follows his Golden Globes win with a best supporting actor nomination for Closer and Sophie Okonedo is up for best supporting actress for her performance in Hotel Rwanda.

The Howard Hughes epic The Aviator led the Academy Awards contenders with 11 nominations, including best picture as well as acting honours for Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett and Alan Alda and a directing slot for Martin Scorsese.

The boxing saga Million Dollar Baby and the J.M. Barrie tale Finding Neverland followed with seven nominations each, among best picture and acting nominations for Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank and Johnny Depp.

Eastwood also got a directing nomination for Million Dollar Baby.

The other best-picture nominees were the Ray Charles portrait Ray and the buddy comedy Sideways.

Along with Eastwood, Jamie Foxx also scored two nominations, as best actor for the title role in Ray and supporting actor as a taxi driver whose cab is hijacked by a hit man in Collateral.

Foxx's dead-on emulation of Charles has made him the front-runner in the lead-actor category.

Starring as aviation trailblazer and Hollywood rebel Hughes, DiCaprio also was nominated for best actor. He and Foxx will compete against Depp as Peter Pan playwright Barrie in Finding Neverland; Eastwood as a cantankerous boxing trainer in Million Dollar Baby; and Don Cheadle for Hotel Rwanda, starring as hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, who sheltered refugees from the Rwandan genocide.

The best-actress category presents a rematch of the 1999 showdown, when underdog Swank won the Oscar for Boys Don't Cry over Annette Bening, who had been the front-runner for American Beauty.

This time, Swank was nominated as a bullheaded boxing champ whose life takes a cruel twist in Million Dollar Baby. Bening was chosen for Being Julia, in which she plays an aging 1930s stage diva exacting wickedly comic revenge on the men in her life and a young rival.

Both actresses won Golden Globes for the roles, Swank for best dramatic actress, Bening for actress in a musical or comedy.

Also nominated for the best-actress Oscar were Catalina Sandino Moreno as a Colombian woman imperiled when she signs on to smuggle heroin in Maria Full of Grace; Imelda Staunton as a saintly housekeeper in 1950s Britain who performs illegal abortions in Vera Drake; and Kate Winslet as a woman who has had memories of her ex-boyfriend erased in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Joining Eastwood and Scorsese among directing nominees are Taylor Hackford for Ray; Mike Leigh for Vera Drake; and Alexander Payne for Sideways.

Scorsese, arguably the most prominent modern filmmaker who has never won an Oscar, also has never delivered a best-picture winner. Considered a nominal best-picture favorite, The Aviator finally offers him a shot to triumph on Oscar night, though Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is a formidable competitor.

The Aviator won the Golden Globe for best-dramatic film, but Eastwood beat out Scorsese for the directing prize at the Globes. Eastwood is a past Oscar winner for best-picture and director with 1992's Unforgiven.

Along with Foxx in Collateral, Alda was nominated for supporting actor as a senator tussling with Hughes in The Aviator while Freeman was picked as a worldly-wise ex-boxer in Million Dollar Baby. The other nominees: Thomas Haden Church as a bridegroom out for a final fling in Sideways; Clive Owen as a coarse lover in Closer.

For supporting actress, academy voters picked Blanchett, who plays Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator; Laura Linney as the title character's sexually adventurous wife in Kinsey; Virginia Madsen as a deceived lover in Sideways; Sophie Okonedo as innkeeper Rusesabagina's wife in Hotel Rwanda; Natalie Portman as a gutsy stripper in Closer.