Carey Mulligan and Emily Blunt lead the British charge for Oscar nominations, while Irish Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy continues his awards season success.
The nominations for the 96th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday afternoon live from Los Angeles.
Oppenheimer, the epic biopic about atomic bomb creator J Robert Oppenheimer from Christopher Nolan, dominated with 13 nods, including one for best actor for Murphy.
Murphy, who plays the title role, was nominated for his first Academy Award. He has already won a Golden Globe for the role.
He faces Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction, Paul Giamatti, who has won plaudits for his performance as a cranky prep school teacher forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student in drama The Holdovers, Bradley Cooper for his Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro and Colman Domingo for his performance as activist Bayard Rustin, adviser to Martin Luther King Jr.
Londoner Blunt, nominated in the best supporting actress category for playing his wife Kitty, enjoyed her first Oscar nomination.
She faces competition from US actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who has won a slew of precursor prizes for her turn as a cook in The Holdovers.
The category also features Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Jodie Foster for her performance in sports drama Nyad about the life of athlete Diana Nyad, and America Ferrera for Barbie.
Meanwhile, British star Mulligan is in contention for best actress for her performance as Leonard Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre in Maestro. It is her third Oscar nomination.
She faces Sandra Huller for Anatomy Of A Fall, Annette Benning for Nyad, Emma Stone for Poor Things and Lily Gladstone for Killers Of The Flower Moon.
Among Oppenheimer’s other nominations was Robert Downey Jr, who also received a nod for supporting actor for portraying Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. It is his third Oscar nomination.
Oppenheimer was also recognised for best picture, while British filmmaker Nolan scored his second nod for best director. He has missed out on an Oscar five times in the past in various categories for his works Memento, Inception and Dunkirk.
In 2024, he will go head-to-head with another British director, Jonathan Glazer, for his film The Zone Of Interest, about a German family who live next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The category also saw Justine Triet nominated for French courtroom drama Anatomy Of A Fall, Martin Scorsese being given a nod for western crime thriller Killers Of The Flower Moon, and Yorgos Lanthimos nominated for Poor Things.
Gothic fairytale comedy Poor Things scored 11 nods in total - second place to Oppenheimer.
Ryan Gosling was among the best supporting actor nominees - with his track I’m Just Ken up for the best song category. It comes following his viral Critics Choice reaction to winning in the same category last week.
In a surprise move, Barbie herself Margot Robbie and the film's director Greta Gerwig did not earn nominations. Neither did Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars in Killer of the Flower Moon.
British films Saltburn and All Of Us Strangers were also left out entirely.
The nominations for the 96th Oscars were announced on Tuesday by Atlanta star Zazie Beetz and The Boys actor Jack Quaid, ahead of the annual ceremony hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
The Academy Awards ceremony will air from midnight on March 11 in the UK.
