Lincoln leads the BAFTA nominations

Britain’s answer to the Oscars, the BAFTA -- short for the British Academy of Film & Television Arts -- announced its nominations today and “Lincoln” received the most with 10. But in a shocking turn of events, Steven Spielberg wound up without one in the director’s category. Other notable multiple nominees include “Les Miserables” and “Life of Pi” with 9 each, “Skyfall” with a surprising 8, “Anna Karenina” and “Argo” with 6, “Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty” with 5, “The Master” with a robust 4, the same total as “Amour,” with 3 for “Silver Linings Playbook.”

The Spielberg omission is a major surprise, considering his standing, along with Ben Affleck (“Argo”) and Kathryn Bigelow (“Zero Dark Thirty”) as mortal locks for Oscar nominations. While the snub is unlikely to have any correlation to the Oscar nominations—to be announced tomorrow morning—it may foretell an eventual loss to Bigelow or Affleck on February 24^th. On the other hand, the BAFTAs are not the most precise bellwether by which to forecast Oscars, as evidenced by the nominations “Skyfall” received for Javier Bardem and Judi Dench in the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories, respectively; there is a slim chance Dench lands an Oscar nomination but virtually none for Bardem.

A complete list of nominations, notable for the double nominations Michael Haneke scored for writing and directing “Amour” and the slightly odd nomination of Ben Affleck for Best Actor in “Argo” over Denzel Washington (“Flight”) or Joaquin Phoenix (“The Master”), can be found here.