The big big big nominees of 2012
Here are the 2012 Oscar nominees for best actor and best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress, and (as a bonus!) best director, as determined by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Demián Bichir was nominated as best actor for A Better Life, in which he played a California gardener in America illegally.
Brad Pitt played Billy Beane, the real-life general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, in the film Moneyball.
Jean Dujardin was nominated for The Actor, playing a silent film star who can’t (or won’t) make the change to talking movie.
[Note: Dujardin won the Oscar!]
George Clooney (shown with Shailene Woodley) was nominated as best actor for The Descendants, a dysfunctional family drama set in Hawaii.
Gary Oldman played George Smiley, a retired spy brought back into the fray, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Michelle Williams played legendary blonde bombshell actress Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn.
Viola Davis (right) played a Southern maid who decides to speak her mind in the film The Help.
Yes, that’s Glenn Close (right) dressed as a man in Albert Nobbs, the tale of a female butler leading a double life.
Rooney Mara played a terribly, terribly punk hacker in the American remake of the Swedish thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Meryl Streep did a truly uncanny accent as Margaret Thatcher, the real-life prime minister of the United Kingdom, in The Iron Lady.
Veteran actor Kenneth Branagh played veteran actor Sir Laurence Olivier in the romantic drama My Week With Marilyn.
Jonah Hill played a statistics-loving office assistant for the Oakland A’s in the film Moneyball.
Nick Nolte played Paddy Conlan, a recovering drunk who agrees to train his son for a mixed martial arts bout in Warrior.
Christopher Plummer played an older man who decides to be true to himself and live as an openly gay man in Beginners.
[Note: Christopher Plummer won the Oscar.]
Max von Sydow (left) played a mute older man who befriends a young boy in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Bérénice Bejo (right) as she appeared in The Artist, playing a young woman who becomes a movie star in the early talkies era.
Octavia Spencer starred as Minny Jackson, an African-American maid who refuses to be too deferential, in The Help.
[Note: Octavia Spencer won the Oscar!]
Melissa McCarthy (center) played a chatty, brash, and not-totally-appropriate bridesmaid in the comedy Bridesmaids.
Jessica Chastain played Celia Foote, described by Oscars.com as “a woman from the wrong side of the tracks trying to hide her shortcomings from her successful husband,” in the race-based drama The Help.
Janet McTeer played Hubert Page, a female painter passing as a man, in the drama Albert Nobbs.
Alexander Payne (right), directing a scene from his Hawaiian family drama The Descendants.
Woody Allen (left) directs Owen Wilson in the romantic comedy Midnight in Paris.
Terrence Malick as he appeared in the 1973 film Badlands. In later years Malick has preferred not to have his picture taken, which is why we have no photo from his 2012 nomination as best director for The Tree of Life.
Martin Scorsese seen at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. He was Oscar-nominated in 2012 for the 2011 fantasy film Hugo.
Michel Hazanavicius at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in 2012, the year he was nominated as best director for The Artist.
[Note: Michel Hazanavicius won the Oscar!]
Even with talented nominees, Oscar night isn’t always smooth and beautiful. Take a look at some of history’s greatest OSCAR NIGHT GAFFES »