The nominations for the 75th Oscars are announced on Tuesday - and thecompetition is the fiercest in years, writes Michael Dwyer, FilmCorrespondent
Well before dawn breaks in Los Angeles next Tuesday morning, the media will be out in force to cover the announcement of the nominations for the 75th Academy Awards. Actors, directors, screenwriters and craft workers will set their clocks early, if they manage to sleep at all, in anticipation of the news at 5.37 a.m. (1.37 p.m. Irish time). This is widely regarded as one of the tightest races in Oscar history, and despite the very high standards, many potential nominees are sure to be disappointed when the news breaks.
One race, to secure the Oscar for best actor, seems so certain to come down to the two front-runners - Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York) - that it appears almost academic as to which actors fill the remaining three places on the shortlist.
In the 10 nominations for actresses, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore look likely to take four places between them. Streep is poised to be nominated as best actress for The Hours and Moore as best supporting actress for the same film, while Moore looks assured of a best actress nomination for Far From Heaven and Streep should collect a best supporting actress nomination for Adaptation.
Should Streep be selected in even one of these categories, she will go into the record books as the most nominated actor in the history of the Oscars. Streep and Katharine Hepburn currently share that record with 12 nominations each.
One of the most interesting announcements on Tuesday will be the best director shortlist, where Roman Polanski is among the leading contenders for The Pianist. However, Polanski is regarded as a fugitive from justice in the US, having been charged with sex with a minor in 1977 and fleeing the country while on bail.
A surprising omission from last year's national entries for best foreign-language film, the Mexican road movie, Y Tu Mama Tambien, is eligible in all other categories this year, following its critical and commercial success on US release. Passed over as Spain's national entry this year, Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her is ineligible for the best foreign-language film award, but can be expected to secure nominations in several other sections.
Ireland is assured of one Oscar nomination - to U2 for best original song with The Hands That Built America from Gangs of New York. A two-time Oscar winner in the best make-up category, Michele Burke, could collect her seventh nomination for Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey could be in contention for his work on The Hours, but his category is fiercely competitive this year; one of the front-runners is the recently deceased Conrad L. Hall who is certain to receive a posthumous nomination for Road to Perdition. And after taking two of the five places on last year's Oscar shortlist for best animated short film, there are strong rumours that Ireland will be represented in that category again this year by one of the new films in the Frameworks initiative.