Avatar, Precious and The Hurt Locker are among the films expected to feature in this year’s Oscar nominations, to be announced later in Los Angeles.

Others include Up in the Air, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and the British film An Education.

This year’s best picture category will include 10 movies, instead of the usual five, for the first time since 1944.

Actress Anne Hathaway will join Academy president Tom Sherak to reveal nominees in 10 of the 24 categories at 1338 GMT.

This year’s Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on 7 March.

Iraq drama The Hurt Locker currently leads the field, having picked up top honours at both the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards.

Contest

If its director Kathryn Bigelow is nominated for the best director Oscar, she would become only the third woman to be shortlisted for this prize in the awards’ 81-year history.

If James Cameron is also nominated for Avatar, it will set up a fascinating contest between Bigelow and her former husband.

US BOX OFFICE TOP FIVE

• 1 Avatar – $31.2m
• 2 Edge of Darkness (pictured) – $17.2m
• 3 When In Rome – $12.3m
• 4 The Tooth Fairy – $9.9m
• 5 The Book of Eli – $8.9m

Source: Hollywood.com

Cameron’s sci-fi epic remains top of the US box office chart for the seventh straight weekend, raking in $31.3m (