Nominations for the 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced today by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis and past Oscar® nominee Salma Hayek.

Ganis and Hayek, who was nominated for an Academy Award® in 2002 for her lead performance in Frida, announced the nominations in 10 of the 24 categories at a 5:30 am live news conference at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Nominations in all categories then were distributed to the over 400 international media representatives in attendance and via the Internet on the official Academy Awards Web site, www.oscar.com.

Academy members from the various branches selected the nominees in their corresponding award categories, with the exception of the Animated Feature and Foreign Language Film categories, in which nominations were determined by vote of screening committees composed of members from several branches. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees. Ballots were mailed to 5, 830 voting members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

Official screenings for members of all pictures receiving nominations will begin this weekend at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings in some categories also will be held in Hollywood, at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater, as well as in London, New York and San Francisco.

The Academy’s entire active and life membership is eligible to select the winners in all categories, although in five of them – the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, and Foreign Language Film categories – members can vote only after attesting that they have seen all of the nominated films in the category.

Following are the nominations for the 79th Annual Academy Awards:

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year: 

Babel

The Departed

Letters From Iwo Jima

Little Miss Sunshine

The Queen

 

Best Actor in a Leading Role: 

Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond

Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

Peter O’Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

 

Best Actress in a Leading Role: 

Penelope Cruz, Volver

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet, Little Children

 

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: 

Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: 

Adriana Barraza, Babel

Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

 

Best Achievement in Directing:

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Paul Greengrass, United 93

 

Best Foreign Language Film: 

After the Wedding, Denmark

Days of Glory, Algeria

The Lives of Others, Germany

Pan’s Labyrinth, Mexico

Water, Canada

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 

Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Children of Men

William Monahan, The Departed 

Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, Little Children 

Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal 

 

Best Original Screenplay: 

Guillermo Arriaga, Babel 

Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Letters From Iwo Jima 

Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine

Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth

Peter Morgan, The Queen 

 

Best Animated Feature Film: 

Cars

Happy Feet

Monster House

 

Achievement in Art Direction: 

Dreamgirls

The Good Shepherd

Pan’s Labyrinth

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

The Prestige

 

Achievement in Cinematography: 

The Black Dahlia

Children of Men

The Illusionist

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Prestige

 

Achievement in Sound Mixing: 

Apocalypto

Blood Diamond

Dreamgirls

Flags of Our Fathers

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

 

Achievement in Sound Editing: 

Apocalypto

Blood Diamond

Flags of Our Fathers

Letters From Iwo Jima

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

 

Achievement in Original Score: 

Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla

The Good German, Thomas Newman

Notes on a Scandal, Philip Glass

Pan’s Labyrinth, Javier Navarrete

The Queen, Alexandre Desplat

 

Achievement in Original Song: 

“I Need to Wake Up“, Melissa Etheridge (An Inconvenient Truth) 

“Listen“, Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven (Dreamgirls)

“Love You I Do“, Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett (Dreamgirls)

“Our Town“, Randy Newman (Cars)

“Patience“, Henry Krieger and Willie Reale (Dreamgirls)

 

Achievement in Costume: 

Curse of the Golden Flower

The Devil Wears Prada

Dreamgirls

Marie Antoinette

The Queen

 

Best Documentary Feature: 

Deliver Us From Evil

An Inconvenient Truth

Iraq in Fragments

Jesus Camp

My Country, My Country

 

Best Documentary (short subject): 

The Blood of Yingzhou District

Recycled Life

Rehearsing a Dream

Two Hands

 

Achievement in Film Editing: 

Babel

Blood Diamond

Children of Men

The Departed

United 93

 

Achievement in Makeup: 

Apocalypto

Click

Pan’s Labyrinth

 

Best Animated Short Film: 

The Danish Poet

Lifted

The Little Matchgirl

Maestro

No Time for Nuts

 

Best Live Action Short Film: 

Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)

Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)

Helmer & Son

The Saviour

West Bank Story

 

Achievement in Visual Effects: 

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Poseidon

Superman Returns 

 

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006 will be presented on Feb 25 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network at 5 pm PST (8 pm EST), beginning with a half-hour arrivals segment, The Road to the Oscars®.

The complete list of nominations for the 79th Annual Academy Awards can be accessed at www.oscar.com