Guy Pearce, Greig Fraser, 'Memoir of a Snail' to carry Aussie hopes ...

Guy Pearce has his first Oscar nomination while Adam Elliot and Greig Fraser each have an opportunity to win their second statue as the categories for this year’s Academy Awards were announced overnight.

The VFX team behind the CGI chimp in Michael Gracey’s Robbie Williams-inspired Better Man, comprising Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft, and Peter Stubbs, received a nod in the VFX category, and Australia also has representation in the field for Best Short Documentary via Smriti Mundhra’s I Am Ready, Warden, produced by Maya Gnyp, and Slava Leontyev and Brendan Bellomo’s Porcelain War, produced by local production company Songbird Studios in association with Imaginary Lane.

However, there was no joy for Golden Globe nominee Nicole Kidman, who missed out in the highly competitive Best Actress category for Babygirl.

Jacques Audiard’s drug cartel musical Emilia Pérez leads the nominations with 13, setting the record for most nods for a non-English language film. Fellow musical Wicked from director John M Chu and Brady Corbet’s post-WW2 drama The Brutalist have 10 nominations, while Edward Berger’s Conclave and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown have eight.

Pearce will be up against fellow first-time nominees Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice), and Yura Borisov (Anora) for Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, with Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown) rounding out the category.

As with the BAFTAs, Fraser (Dune: Part Two) will contend for Best Cinematography against Paul Guilhaume (Emilia Pérez), Jarin Blaschke (Nosferatu), and Lol Crawley (The Brutalist), with Ed Lachman added to the mix for Maria.

The Achievement in Visual Effects field also closely mirrors that of the British awards, with Better Man nominated alongside Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Dune: Part 2, and Wicked. However, Alien: Romulus gets the nod over Gladiator 2.

More than two decades after he was awarded Best Animated Short Film for Harvie Krumpet, Elliot makes it into the Best Animated Feature category for Memoir of a Snail alongside producer Liz Kearney, going up against Golden Globe winner Flow, Inside Out 2, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and The Wild Robot.

Battling it out for Best Motion Picture this year are Emilia Pérez, Wicked, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, The Substance, Nickel Boys, and I’m Still Here.

The 97th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2 at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, with Conan O’Brien hosting the ceremony. The ceremony will be broadcast on Channel 7 at 11am AEDT, and replayed later in the evening.

Find the full list of nominations here.

*Updated