Academy Awards voters are about to release their first top-10 list in 66 years.

Academy award - the film guide the academy awards, widely known as the oscars, are awards presented annually by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Academy Awards voters are about to release their first top-10 list in 66 years.

Oscar nominations Tuesday feature 10 best-picture nominees instead of the usual five, the first time since the 1943 awards show that so many films are competing for Hollywood's highest honor.

Academy organizers say they wanted a broader range of titles in the mix, including worthy populist movies that often miss out on best-picture nominations in favor of the smaller dramas Oscar voters typically prefer.

Read more..

You could say the price of an Oscar nod got cut in half this year. Chagrined that box-office and critical favourite The Dark Knight wasn't nominated last year, the academy honchos decided to double the number of nominees for best picture. That means 10 films, not five, will be up for the big kahuna come March.

So here are 10 worthies in advance of Wednesday's official nominations, keeping in mind the academy's goal of recognising the popular without snubbing the good or good for you. This isn't a top 10 list for 2009, or a prediction of results. It's just a suggestion as to how the five extra choices might be used. The real nominations will be announced at 12.30am on Wednesday, Australian time.

And the nominees are:

Avatar

You might have heard of this one. James Cameron's eco-friendly action blockbuster is breaking box-office records and fuelling water-cooler conversation on a weekly basis. It's also a titanic leap ahead in technical know-how, one of the rare movies you leave thinking, "I've never seen anything like that." So Avatar has both the stamp of public approval and a bona fide claim to artistry. It's in.

The Hangover

This one's a little tricky. Like Avatar, it got a Golden Globe, for best musical or comedy. It also enjoyed the rare double whammy of box-office success (it's now the best-selling comedy DVD ever) and generally favourable reviews. But the Oscar folk, who seem averse to comedy in the first place, may find it a little bawdy to give it their official imprimatur. How about showing some love for "Fat Jesus" and the gang and recognising the funny.

Read here

Academy President Sid Ganis announces that the 82nd Academy Awards, which will be presented onMarch 7, 2010, will have 10 feature films vying in the Best Picture category.