Avatar and The Hurt Locker Battle at Oscar Nominations

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Nine Oscar nominations each for Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

Avatar and The Hurt Locker have gone head to head at the Oscars, picking up 9 nominations each from the Academy today.

Both movies are certain of some Oscar glory, but the question will be which movie triumphs in the highly contested categories of Best Film and Best Director.

James Cameron was nominated for Best Director and has won the Oscar before for his multi-award winning movie Titanic. Cameron faces stiff competition however from Kathryn Bigelow for her visceral helming of The Hurt Locker. No female has ever won the Best Director award and Bigelow is only the fourth woman to be nominated in a male dominated industry.

Whilst critics feel it is time the Academy bestowed Best Director on a female, there is still plenty of support for Cameron, having already picked up the Golden Globe for Best Director in January. Inglorious Basterds, Precious and Up in the Air will struggle to compete against Cameron and Bigelow.

Another nod from the Academy is likely to come for Jeff Bridges. The cult actor was nominated for Best Actor for his role in Crazy Heart. Having been nominated three times before, Bridges’ time has surly come.

It would be a fairly safe bet to assume that George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman and Jeremy Renner need not prepare acceptance speeches.

Both Avatar and The Hurt Locker have also been nominated for Best Film. For the first time since 1944 the Academy has increased the nominations for Best Film to 10, bringing nominations for: The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air.

Avatar has already confirmed its place in the history books, sinking Titanic‘s 12 year record as the highest grossing movie of all time, with $1.859 billion made worldwide and counting. Now movie buffs will wait to see if Avatar can be a critical success as well as a box office smash. Avatar will not be able to match Titanic‘s extraordinary haul of eleven Academy Awards, it could yet bathe itself in significant Oscar glory.

The Oscars will be hosted on Sunday 7 March 2010. Let us know what you think of the nominations with a comment below.