Hollywood is gearing up for the Academy Awards, or Oscars Sunday, the highlight of the year for the movie industry.
Top contenders at the Oscars include the drama Birdman, with Michael Keaton as a best actor nominee, and the film’s costars, Edward Norton and Emma Stone, up for supporting Oscars for this tale of a washed-up movie superhero who tries to revive his career on the Broadway stage.
Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Inarritu co-wrote and directed Birdman and is considered a top contender for the Oscar for best director.
Richard Linklater is another frontrunner for best director for the coming-of-age tale Boyhood, a film that was shot over a 12-year period. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are Oscar nominees for their supporting roles as the parents of two children who grow from childhood to adolescence.
The Imitation Game from Norwegian moviemaker Morten Tyldum is another multiple Oscar nominee. Star Benedict Cumberbatch will compete for the Oscar for best actor for playing the World War II code-cracker Alan Turing. The film is based on a real-life story of the people who deciphered the German secret code called "Enigma."
Keira Knightley will compete for an Oscar for her supporting role.
Other major film contenders the include The Grand Budapest Hotel, a comedy from director Wes Anderson.
The Iraq war film American Sniper earned an Oscar nomination for star Bradley Cooper. And a story of money, madness and Olympic aspirations, Foxcatcher, earned acting nominations for star Steve Carell and costar Mark Ruffalo.
Julianne Moore is a best actress nominee for her role as a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in Still Alice. Marion Cotillard is a best actress nominee for her role in the workplace drama Two Days, One Night, and Rosamund Pike for the thriller Gone Girl.
Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern are acting nominees for the film Wild, a real-life story based on a woman’s journey of healing and self-discovery.
Among foreign-language nominees are the corruption tale Leviathan from Russia and the French-Mauritanian entry Timbuktu, which is based on real events in Northern Mali under repressive jihadist rule in 2012.
The film Virunga is among the nominees for best documentary feature. It looks at heroic efforts to save mountain gorillas in a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The eyes of the world will be on Hollywood on Sunday when the winners are announced at the Oscar ceremony at the Dolby Theatre.
