The 85th Annual Academy Awards announced its slew of nominations yesterday, but today the American Cinema Editors guild has released their nominations for excellence in editing for 2012.  Nominees for the 63rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards in the dramatic category include Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Skyfall, while the comedy or musical category includes Best Picture hopeful Silver Linings Playbook and Seth MacFarlane’s R-rated comedy Ted.  Argo and Zero Dark Thirty seem like the formidable competition in the dramatic category given how expertly both films layer and manage tension throughout their running times, and coincidentally they both share one of the same editors: William Goldenberg.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees in the dramatic, comedy or musical, and animated categories, as well as documentary and television categories.  The 63rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards will be held on February 16th.

The Broadcast Film Critics Association announced the winners of the 18th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards tonight.  While Ben Affleck was noted as the lesser of the Best Director snubs when Oscar nominations were announced this morning, the BFCA named Affleck Best Director and his Argo Best Picture.  They feature genre awards—action, comedy, and sci-fi/horror all have their own Best Picture category—so there’s a bit of an “everybody gets a trophy” philosophy.  But that allowed Jennifer Lawrence to pick up two trophies: Best Actress in an Action Movie (The Hunger Games) and Best Actress in a Comedy (Silver Linings Playbook).  Silver Linings Playbook earned four total; the Best Comedy winner brought Lawrence’s co-star Bradley Cooper Best Actor in a Comedy and the rest of the cast Best Acting Ensemble.

The four primary acting awards went to major Oscar contenders Daniel Day-Lewis, Jessica Chastain, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Anne Hathaway.  But the BFCA also found room for Collider favorites Skyfall, Looper, and Cloud Atlas.  See the full list after the break.

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

At last, Oscar is upon us.  Back in November I shared a look at the early awards season race by way of our 2013 Oscar Preview articles, and now nearly two months later there’s still quite a bit up in the air.  This truly is one of the more exciting awards races in recent years, as 2012 is so stacked with quality that there are a surprising number of uncertainties this close to the Academy Awards ceremony.  Nevertheless, I am once again foolishly going to attempt to predict how the Oscar nominations will shake out when they’re announced tomorrow morning, January 10th.  Hit the jump to check out my predictions.

The Directors Guild of America has just announced their nominations for “Outstanding Direction in Feature Film” for the 65th Annual DGA Awards.  The nominees are as follows:

• Ben Affleck for Argo
• Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty
• Tom Hooper for Les Miserables
• Ang Lee for Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

These nominations, as well as the omission of certain other directors, carry certain implications heading into the Academy Awards contest.  Hit the jump for more DGA-related news.

The Visual Effects Society has announced the nominees for the upcoming 11th Annual VES Awards.  This year’s major players include Life of Pi, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Prometheus, The Avengers, and Battleship, all of which landed nominations for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture.  The VES Awards also recognize visual effects work in more dramatic fare, singling out the impressive effects of films like Flight and The Impossible.  Duking it out for Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature will be the ridiculously impressive Richard Parker in Life of Pi, Hulk in The Avengers, and Gollum and Goblin King in The Hobbit.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees.  The 11th Annual VES Awards will take place on February 5th.

As we head into the thick of awards season, we’re starting to see how the various guilds stack up with regards to the best of 2012 (the PGA nominations were announced yesterday).  The guilds are usually a good Oscar predictor as their voting bodies overlap significantly with the Academy’s voting body, and today we have a peek into the screenplay race by way of the nominations for the 2013 Writers Guild Awards.  The list includes some pleasant surprises like Rian Johnson’s brilliantly original script for Looper and Steven Chbosky’s touching adaptation of his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as well as expected candidates like The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty, and Lincoln.

Each year a number of screenplays are ruled ineligible for the WGA’s, and this year is no exception as Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Behn Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and William Nicholson’s Les Miserables were all  ineligible for WGA consideration for various insignificant reasons.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of WGA nominations.  The 2013 Writers Guild Awards will be held on February 17th.

The nominations for the 2013 Producers Guild Awards have been announced.  The PGA’s are a fairly reliable predictor of the Academy Awards, as last year all but two eventual Best Picture nominees (The Tree of Life and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) were PGA nominees.  This year’s contenders include expected fare like Argo, Les Miserables, and Lincoln, indies such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom, and critical favorite Zero Dark Thirty.  The PGA’s are also fond of singling out one “popular” choice, and in this year’s case that film looks to be the excellent Skyfall

In addition to the feature films, the PGAs also announced the nominees in television.  Drama series nominees include the usual suspects like Homeland, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones, while the comedy category is filled out by 30 Rock, Louie, Modern Family, and for some reason The Big Bang Theory.  Notably absent is HBO’s Girls and NBC’s brilliant Parks and Recreation.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of film and television nominees.  The 24th Annual PGA Awards will be held on January 26th.

To try something new with our top 10 lists this year, we opened up a readers poll where you could vote for your 10 favorite movies of 2012.  The tallies are in: 3,760 of you from over 100 different countries racked up 28,375 total votes.  Your top ten of the year are The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, Skyfall, Looper, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained, Argo, The Cabin in the Woods, Moonrise Kingdom, and Prometheus.

The two superhero giants were always a lock for the top spots, but I was surprised to find that a true majority of our readers voted for The Dark Knight Rises (59.9%) and The Avengers (55.4%).  It’s nice to see that not everything on the list is a blockbuster, as so many of you found room for the likes of The Cabin in the Woods (25.7%) and Moonrise Kingdom (21.9%).  Hit the jump for the full breakdown of the votes, including a comparison of American votes and international votes.

While I stuck to my genre-loving guns in my Top 10 Films of 2012 and Top 10 Trailers of 2012, I’m happy to branch out a bit more with respect to the year’s ten best movie posters.  Here’s where I get pretentious.  Posters have the difficult task of attracting attention, holding it long enough to convey a message and getting that message across without the use of sound or motion (normally).  I prefer posters that are minimalist in nature and leave you with an iconic image that you’ll forever associate with the film.  Bonus points are given to those posters that offer layered meanings tied into the movie in question and which inspire curiosity in the picture.  What follows are the year’s ten best posters from a mix of big budget and lesser known movies.  Hit the jump to check them out.

Plenty of regional critics associations are announcing their winners, but I’m reporting on the picks from the Southeastern Film Critics Association since I’m a member (also, according to Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone, we have influence!).  I have to admit I’m pretty disappointed with the results.  Argo was chosen as the Best Picture of the year, and while I could see its inclusion in the Top 10, it’s a fun thriller without much depth.  Far more damning is the inclusion of The Dark Knight Rises in the Top 10.  It makes me want to scream at the people in SEFCA to watch more movies.  Why not The Avengers or Skyfall if they wanted to include a blockbuster action movie?

As for the other categories, there weren’t any surprises. And while it wasn’t a surprise, I’m glad Beasts of the Southern Wild won the Gene Wyatt Award, which is for the film that best evokes the spirit of the South.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

The nominations for the 2013 Golden Globes have been announced.  The Golden Globes are a “legitimate” award simply by virtue of A) They’ve been around for so long; B) Stars like attending because it’s a laid-back version of the Oscars where people can get an award, schmooze with other folks in Hollywood, and enjoy a nice meal.  The Golden Globes are doled out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is a phony organization that can easily be swayed through pandering.

Most of the nominees are the usual suspects (especially in the TV categories), and there weren’t too many surprises among the film categories either.  Movies that have been doing well among critics organizations–Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook–all received their due.  The only surprise was the love shown towards Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which racked up nominations in the Comedy/Musical category for Best Actor (Ewan McGregor), Best Actress (Emily Blunt), and Best Comedy/Musical.  With nominations in these categories, I’m surprised it didn’t pick up a nod for Best Supporting Actress for Kristin Scott Thomas, who has the movie’s standout performance.  Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  The 70th Golden Globe Awards will air on NBC on January 13, 2013 at 8pm EST/5pm PST. [Update: We've updated the article with a promo video for the awards featuring hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.]

The nominations have been announced for the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.  We’ve been getting plenty of critics’ lists, but now we’re moving into real award territory.  Leading the pack among the films are Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, and Lincoln with four nominations including Best Ensemble.  The most baffling inclusion is Nicole Kidman for Best Supporting Actress for The Paperboy, when clearly she should have been nominated for Best Actress to Piss on Zac Efron‘s Face.  As for the TV shows, Homeland leads with four nominations.

Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced on January 27th.

The nominations for the 2012 Critics Choice Awards have been announced.  Voted on by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the awards ceremony is set to broadcast live on the CW on January 10, 2013 at 8pm EST.  While we learned in our latest episode of The Collision that the Critics Choice Awards aren’t as influential as other critics groups, they are still part of the awards season race.  The BFCA showed a lot of love towards Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln, bestowing the film with a record-breaking 13 nominations.  Following close behind were Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook with 11 each.   I will say that I think it’s a little silly to have categories for “Best Action Movie”, “Best Comedy”, etc.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has narrowed down the Best Original Score race…to 104 entries.  The Academy has shortlisted over 100 scores from 2012 that are eligible to compete for the gold on Oscar night, including three from Alexandre Desplat alone (Argo, Rise of the Guardians, and Zero Dark Thirty).  Every year there are a few scores that are ruled ineligible for one reason or another, and this year those ineligible films include The Bourne Legacy, Moonrise Kingdom, and Rust and Bone.

For my money, the standouts of 2012 were Beasts of the Southern Wild, Looper, and The Dark Knight Rises.  I have a feeling Howard Shore’s work on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will end up being a favorite of mine as well.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of 104 eligible scores, and leave thoughts on your personal favorites from 2012 in the comments section.  The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced on January 10th, followed by the ceremony on February 24th.