'The King's Speech' leads Oscar with 12 nominations

Los Angeles: After sweeping the maximum nominations at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, royal drama "The King's Speech" is leading the Oscar race with as many as 12 nominations for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

"The King's Speech" stars Colin Firth as King George VI and actor Geoffrey Rush as speech therapist Lionel Logue, who helped George VI overcome a stammer. The film traces the journey of the British monarch.

It has been nominated in best motion picture, best actor (Colin Firth), director (Tom Hooper), supporting actor (Geoffrey Rush), supporting actress (Helena Bonham Carter) and original music (Alexandre Desplat) categories.

Other categories where it has been included are original screenplay (David Seidler), cinematography (Danny Cohen), editing (Tariq Anwar), costume design (Jenny Beavan) apart from sound mixing and art direction.

"True Grit" is giving neck-to-neck competition to the "The King's Speech" with 10 nominations, followed by "Inception" and "The Social Network" with eight nominations each.

This is the first time that as many as 10 films have been nominated in best motion picture category. Apart from "The King's Speech", the list of competitors includes "Black Swan", "The Fighter", "Inception", "The Kids Are All Right", "127 Hours", "The Social Network", "Toy Story 3", "True Grit" and "Winter's Bone".

Those vying for the best actor in a leading role trophy are Javier Bardem ("Biutiful"), Jeff Bridges ("True Grit"), Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network"), and James Franco ("127 Hours"), other than Colin Firth.

The actresses in the run for the golden statuette this year include Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right"), Natalie Portman ("Black Swan"), Nicole Kidman ("Rabbit Hole"), Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone") and Michelle Williams ("Blue Valentine").

Apart from Tom Hooper, the directors who have been considered for the best director Oscar are Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan"), David Fincher ("The Social Network"), David O. Russell ("The Fighter") as well as Joel Coen and Ethan Coen ("True Grit").

Among the foreign language films competing for the prestigious honour are "Biutiful" (Mexico), "Dogtooth" (Greece), "In A Better World" (Denmark), "Incendies" (Canada) and "Outside The Law" (Algeria).