Science-fiction adventure Avatar and Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker have earned nine Academy Award nominations each, including best movie, to lead the field in the competition for the world's highest film honours.
Irish films The Secret of Kells - produced by Kilkenny's Cartoon Saloon - was nominated in the best animated feature film category while Dublin-based Brown Bag Films' Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty picked up the short animated film nomination. The Door by Wicklow company Octagon Films was nominated in the short film category.
There were two other Irish nominations - Richard Beneham for visual effects in Avatar and Peter Devlin for sound on Star Trek.
In addition to Avatar and The Hurt Locker, the 10 nominees for best motion picture include Up in the Air, The Blind Side, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire and District 9. Rounding out the list of best film nominees were animated movie Up!, A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds and An Education.
Nominations for best actor in a film went to Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, George Clooney for Up in the Air, Colin Firth in A Single Man, Morgan Freeman for Invictus and Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker.
Best actress nominees were Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, Helen Mirren in The Last Station, Carey Mulligan for An Education, Gabourey Sidibe in Precious and Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia.
Matt Damon (Invictus), Woody Harrelson (The Messenger), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) are up for best supporting actor.
Penelope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) and Mo'Nique (Precious) are the contenders for supporting actress.
Last month, Avatar scooped a double victory including best film drama at the Golden Globes, which are seen as an indicator of who is likely to receive Oscar nods.
Avatar recently surpassed director James Cameron's multiple Oscar-winning Titanic - and saw the director beat his own record when the film became the highest grossing movie ever.
Cameron's former partner Kathryn Bigelow directed The Hurt Locker. Made for a fraction of the budget of Avatar, the tense movie about an elite bomb disposal team has won widespread critical acclaim and triumphed at the Directors Guild of America awards.
Cameron and Bigelow were both shortlisted for best director in the Golden Globes, with Cameron taking the prize.
The full list of nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards was announced in Los Angeles. For the first time, this year's nominations see a shortlist of 10 in the best film category rather than the previous five.
Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will co-host the awards on March 7th.
Elsewhere, box-office blockbuster Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen and the Will Ferrell flop Land of the Lost lead nominations for the annual Razzies, a tongue-in-cheek commemoration of the year's worst movies.
Actress Sandra Bullock could be on her way to being crowned both worst and best actress of 2009 after picking up a Razzie, or Golden Raspberry, nomination for her role in 2009 comedy All About Steve. The film was also among the worst picture nominees.
But Bullock (45) has also swept the major Hollywood awards this season for her performance in the drama The Blind Side.
Teen star Miley Cyrus joined Bullock in the worst actress nominations for Hannah Montana: The Movie. But the Disney actress and singer found herself in familiar company with all three of the popular Jonas Brothers band being nominated for worst actor for their Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience.
Nominations were announced yesterday, as is tradition, the day before the Oscar nominations. The Razzies are determined by 647 paying voters in the United States and overseas.
Most nominees boycott the ceremony, although Halle Berry sportingly showed up five years ago to accept her prize for Catwoman.
