Among a slate of surprises and snubs, two unconventional movies about cinema history lead the nominees for Hollywood's highest honor.

In a Tuesday morning announcement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Martin Scorsese's 3-D "Hugo" and Michel Hazanavicius' black-and-white silent "The Artist" were nominated for 11 and 10 Oscars respectively, including best picture. 

The other nominees for the top award are Steven Spielberg's battlefield epic "War Horse," the inside-baseball movie "Moneyball," Alexander Payne's family drama "The Descendants," Woody Allen's time-travel fantasy "Midnight in Paris," the civil rights tearjerker "The Help," Terrence Malick's coming-of-age story "The Tree of Life," and Stephen Daldry's divisive 9/11 drama "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

Daldry ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close") has now directed four consecutive best picture nominees, including "Billy Elliot," "The Hours," "The Reader"; but he himself was not nominated this year. Scorsese, Payne, Malick, Allen and Hazanavicius will vie for best director.

Meryl Streep, the most honored performer in Academy history but a non-winner since 1983's “Sophie's Choice,” earned her 17th nomination, as best actress for her performance as British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady." Her competition includes Viola Davis as a resilient housemaid "The Help," Glenn Close as a cross-dressing servant in "Albert Nobbs" (opening Friday in St. Louis), Michelle Williams as a screen legend in "My Week with Marilyn" and relative newcomer Rooney Mara as a sleuthing hacker in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

The nominees for best actor are George Clooney as a besieged father in "The Descendants," his close friend Brad Pitt as a baseball executive in "Moneyball," Gary Oldman as an aging intelligence operative in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," Jean Dujardin as a matinee idol in "The Artist" and Mexican actor Demian Bichir as an immigrant gardener in "A Better Life."

Credible contenders who are missing from that list include Ryan Gosling in "The Ides of March," Michael Fassbender in "Shame," Michael Shannon in "Take Shelter" and Pitt in "The Tree of Life."

If Bichir is the least known of the major nominees, he is not the most surprising. Television star Melissa McCarthy ("Mike and Molly") nabbed a nomination for her supporting role in the gross-out comedy "Bridesmaids." Her competition includes Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in "The Help," Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs" and Berenice Bejo in "The Artist."

In a nomination that eliicted gasps from the press corps, comic sidekick Jonah Hill ("Superbad") was honored for his smarts in "Moneyball."

Hill's nomination for best supporting actor likely came at the expense of Albert Brooks, a critics favorite in "Drive."

The other nominees in that category include Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Oliver in "My Week with Marilyn," Nick Nolte as a fight trainer in "Warrior" and a pair of old war horses who may split the lifetime-achievement vote: Christopher Plummer as a late-blooming widower in "Beginners" and Max von Sydow as the mute companion to a traumatized boy in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

Silence may be golden on Oscar night, as the wordless French coimedy "The Artist" is widely considered the favorite to win best picture. But the eleven nominations for "Hugo," which dramatizes the life of silent pioneer Georges Melies, may signal a shift in momentum toward Scorsese's film.

Under a system that the Academy implemented last year to help increase the TV ratings and honor more popular films, the number of nominees for best picture is determined by a weighted formula and can vary from five to ten.

The number of nominees for best animated film can vary also, and missing from the list of this year's finalists are two hits: Pixar's widely criticized "Cars 2" and Steven Spielberg's motion capture "The Adventures of Tintin." In their place are two little-seen foreign 'toons--"A Cat in Paris" and "Chico & Rita"--along with the sequels "Puss in Boots" and "Kung Fu Panda 2" and the animated Western "Rango."

The Academy Awards are scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood and will be broadcast on ABC.