The 3 D science fiction hit Avatar and the American war thriller The Hurt Locker lead the Academy Awards with nine nominations each, including best picture and director for former spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow.

ALL EYES are now set on the Oscar nomination 2010, and who’s who in the race is no longer a secret. The 3 D science fiction hit Avatar and the American war thriller The Hurt Locker lead the Academy Awards with nine nominations each, including best picture and director for former spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow.

 
For the first time since 1943 the Oscars awards include 10 best-picture contenders instead of the usual five.
 

Also nominated for best-picture Tuesday: "District 9"; the animated comedy "Up"; the World War II saga "Inglourious Basterds"; the football drama "The Blind Side"; the recession tale "Up in The Air," the 1960s drama "A Serious Man," and the teen tales "An Education" and "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' By Sapphire."
 
Cameron's Avatar has already won best drama and director at the Golden Globes, while The Hurt Locker beat Cameron at the Directors Guild of America Awards.
 
Bigelow said she was gratified and humbled. "It's a huge, huge compliment to the entire cast and crew," she said. "It was a very difficult shoot of heat and sun and windstorms and sandstorms and they had to unite crew from Lebanon and Israel."
 
According to reports, Bigelow is the first woman director to have won the coveted Directors Guild Awards. And in case she wins the Oscar, she would again be the first woman in the league. "I hope someday we can lose the modifier and that becomes a moot point whether the person is male or female and they're just filmmakers making statements that they believe in," Bigelow said.
 
Hollywood Veteran Sandra Bullock has never been nominated for an Oscar before but is considered the best-actress front-runner, playing a wealthy woman who takes in homeless teen Michael Oher, now a star with the Baltimore Ravens.
Bullock said "no one cares about the end result or the statue." For her, the awards run has been about rubbing shoulders with the actresses she's nominated alongside.
 
"You laugh at the absurdity of it all and how they pit women up against each other. We go, 'Why are they making us out to be fighting when we're just happy to share this moment?'" Bullock said. "The women I've met and gotten to know along the way have made me so happy for this business that didn't really support women for a long time. It's been really sweet. I feel really lucky to be working at this time."
 
Bullock is facing competition from Oscar winner Meryl Streep as chef Julia Child in "Julie & Julia" and Helen Mirren as Leo Tolstoy's bullheaded wife in The Last Station.
 
The 82nd Oscars will be presented March 7 in a ceremony airing on ABC from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.