‘An Education,’ ‘Hurt Locker’ & ‘Avatar’ Lead The 2009 BAFTA Nominations

Lone Scherfig’s “An Education,” Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” and James Cameron’s “Avatar,” lead the pack this year for the Orange British Academy Film Awards, each tying with eight nominations apiece including Best Film, Best Director (each film also grabbed Best Editing aside from ‘Education’).

“An Education” also took additional prestige noms in the Best British Film category, Best Actress for Carey Mulligan, Best Supporting for Alfred Molina, Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby). Predictably, perhaps an accurate augur for Oscar, “Avatar” only swept up in the technical awards (then again, so did “Lord Of The Rings,” will we see that kind of repeat?). “The Hurt Locker” took additional nominations in Best Actor for Jeremy Renner, Original Screenplay (Mark Boal) and several areas including cinematography.

Possibly the biggest Best Picture snub went to Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” which scored six nominations including Best Director and Screenplay for the Quentin, but it’s probably not a surprise that the Brits favored their own (“An Education”) over something American (why couldn’t it have been “Precious”?). Jason Reitman’s “Up In The Air” also fared extremely well grabbing six nominations including Best Film, Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress and Editing, but Reitman surprisingly failed to score a Best Director nod. “District 9” also scored a very handsome seven nominations, including a Best Director nom for Neill Blomkamp. Nothing to sneeze at. On the British side of things, Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” (a U.K. production) was definitely snubbed on receiving one award. Ah well.

The rest of the nominees are thus:

BEST FILM
Avatar
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Up In The Air

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
An Education
Fish Tank
In The Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy

DIRECTOR
James Cameron, Avatar
Neill Blomkamp, District 9
Lone Schefig, An Education
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

LEADING ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up In The Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Andy Serkis Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

LEADING ACTRESS
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Saoirse Ronan, The Lovely Bones
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Audrey Tautou, Coco Before Chanel

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alec Baldwin, It’s Complicated
Christian Mckay, Me And Orson Welles
Alfred Molina, An Education
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
Vera Farmiga, Up In The Air
Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air
Mo’nique, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire
Kristin Scott Thomas, Nowhere Boy

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson Directors, Producers – Mugabe And The White African
Eran Creevy Writer/Director – Shifty Stuart
Hazeldine Writer/Director – Exam
Duncan Jones Director – Moon
Sam Taylor-Wood Director – Nowhere Boy

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Hangover (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
Up (Bob Peterson, Pete Docter)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell)
An Education (Nick Hornby)
In The Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche)
Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire (Geoffrey Fletcher)
Up In The Air Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

There’s far too many categories to list out in full, so read more of them over at Indiewire, but kudo for giving “The Road” a cinematography nomination, props for recognizing the music in “Fantastic Mr Fox” (and in the animated category too), “Bright Star” for costume design and fanboys will be happy that “Let The Right One In” got some love in the Foreign Language category along with Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” (which is of course much more our speed than theirs because no missiles shoot out of anyone’s testicles in that picture).