Sigourney Weaver and Academy President Frank Pierson announce the nominees for the 76th Annual Academy Awards.

Nominations for the 76th Annual Academy Awards were announced today (Tuesday, January 27) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Frank Pierson and three-time Oscar®-nominated actress Sigourney Weaver.

Pierson and Weaver announced ten of the 24 categories at a 5:30 a.m. news conference attended by over 400 international media. Nominations in all categories were distributed to news media in attendance and via the Internet on the official Academy Awards Web site — www.oscar.com.

Weaver received a 1986 Oscar nomination for her leading role in "Aliens" and received both Actress and Supporting Actress nominations two years later for "Gorillas in the Mist" and "Working Girl" respectively. Her many film credits include "Galaxy Quest," "The Ice Storm," "Copycat," "Death and the Maiden," "Dave," and the "Aliens" franchise. She will be seen next in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village."

Academy members selected the nominees in their respective branches, with the exception of the Animated Feature and Foreign Language Film categories, where nominations were selected by vote of screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees. The secret ballots were mailed to 5,803 members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

Best Picture nominees, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"," Lost in Translation," "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," "Mystic River ," and "Seabiscuit."

Official screenings of all pictures with a nomination will begin this weekend for members at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings in special categories also will be held in the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York and San Francisco.

The Academy's entire active and life membership is eligible to select the winners in all categories, although in five of them — the two short film, the two documentary and the foreign language film categories — members can vote only after attesting they have seen all of the nominated films in those categories.

Academy Awards® for outstanding film achievements of 2003 were presented on Sunday, February 29, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland® and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5:00 p.m. PST with a half-hour arrival segment.

The complete list of nominations for the 76th Annual Academy Awards may be accessed at www.oscar.com.