Del Toro's 'Shape of Water,' Set In Baltimore, Lands A Leading 13 Oscar Nods
(CNN) -- Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday amid what's proving to be an unpredictable and highly political awards season.
The fantasy film "The Shape of Water" led with 13 Academy Award nominations on Tuesday, including best picture. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the plot follows a mute custodian at a government lab who befriends a humanoid-amphibian creature being kept there.
The the other best picture nominees are "Lady Bird, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," "The Post," "Get Out, "Dunkirk," "Darkest Hour" "Call Me By Your Name" and "Phantom Thread."
Best actor nominees are Gary Oldman for "Darkest Hour," Timothée Chalamet, for "Call Me By Your Name," Daniel Day-Lewis for "Phantom Thread," Daniel Kaluuya for "Get Out " and Denzel Washington for "Roman J. Israel, Esq."
Best actress nominees are Frances McDormand for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" Saoirse Ronan for "Lady Bird," Sally Hawkins for "The Shape of Water," Meryl Streep for "The Post" and Margot Robbie "I, Tonya."
Jordan Peele earned a best director nomination for his social-justice thriller "Get Out," becoming only the fifth African-American director nominated in that category.
Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming-of-age story "Lady Bird," is also the fifth woman ever to be nominated for a best director Oscar
They were joined in their category by Guillermo Del Toro for "The Shape of Water", Christopher Nolan for "Dunkirk" and Paul Thomas Anderson for "Phantom Thread."
With her nomination for best supporting actress for her role in "The Shape of Water," Octavia Spencer makes history as the first African- American actress to receive multiple nominations after a win. Spencer won in that category for "The Help" in 2012.
Allison Janney ("I, Tonya"), Laurie Metcalf ("Lady Bird ") Lesley Manville ("Phantom Thread") and Mary J. Blige ("Mudbound") join Spencer as nominees in the category.
The Oscars come as the entertainment industry reckons with sexual harassment and gender inequality issues, unleashed by allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein and a host of others.
Tiffany Haddish, Andy Serkis and Academy President John Bailey announced the nominees in a live digital stream, with some assistance from previous Oscar winners.
The Academy's accounting firm PwC, which calculates the Oscar ballots and secures the winner envelopes, have announced new procedures for the ceremony to avoid another envelope mixup. Human error at last year's show led to "La La Land" mistakenly being named the best picture winner before the actual winner, "Moonlight," was announced.
Late-night star Jimmy Kimmel is returning to host the Academy Awards, set for Sunday, March 4, 2018 on ABC.
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