Oscar winner, Marcia Gay Harden, and Academy President, Frank Pierson, announce nominations for Best Picture for the 74th Academy Awards.

Nominations for the 74th Annual Academy Awards were announced on February 12, 2002 by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Frank Pierson and Oscar^® winner Marcia Gay Harden.

Pierson and Harden 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 simultaneously to news media in attendance and via the Internet on the official Academy Awards Web site - www.oscar.com.

Harden received her first Academy Award Nomination last year at the 73rd Academy Awards, and won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Lee Krasner, the artist wife of abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, in "Pollock."

	Best Animated Feature Film of the Year nominees, "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius," "Monsters, Inc." and "Shrek."

Academy members selected the nominees in their respective branches, with the exception of the Animated Feature, Foreign Language Film and Makeup categories, where nominations were selected by vote of screening committees. All members select the Best Picture nominees. The secret ballots were mailed to 5,739 members in early January and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

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 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.

Best Motion Picture of the Year nominees, "A Beautiful Mind," Gosford Park," "In the Bedroom," "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," and "Moulin Rouge."

Academy Awards^® for outstanding film achievements of 2001 will be presented on Sunday, March 24, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland^® and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST. A half-hour arrival segment will precede the presentation ceremony at 5 p.m.

The complete list of nominations for the 74th Annual Academy Awards may be accessed at www.oscar.com.