BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- 'Schindler's List,' director Steven Spielberg's story of the Holocaust, captured 12 Oscar nominations Wednesday to lead all films in the 1993 Academy Awards.
'Schindler' was followed by 'The Piano,' a drama set in 19th century New Zealand, and 'The Remains of the Day,' a romantic drama, with eight nominations each.
In addition to those three, the best picture nominees included the blockbuster thriller 'The Fugitive' and the Irish drama 'In the Name of the Father,' both with seven nominations.
Actresses Holly Hunter and Emma Thompson set an Academy record for being the first two performers to be nominated in two categories in the same year. In past years only one performer at a time has accomplished the feat.
Hunter was nominated for best actress for her role as a mute woman who expresses herself through her music in 'The Piano' and supporting actress as a feisty secretary in 'The Firm.' Thompson, who won the lead prize last year for 'Howards End,' was nominated for best actress for her performance as a frustrated maid in 'The Remains of the Day' and for supporting actress as a lawyer fighting for Daniel Day-Lewis's acquittal in 'In the Name of the Father.'
Other nominees for best actress were Angela Bassett, who played singer Tina Turner in 'What's Love Got To Do With It,' Stockard Channing as a moralistic wife in 'Six Degrees of Separation,' and Debra Winger for her performance in 'Shadowlands,' portraying a brilliant American in love with an English author.
There was a surprise in the nominees for best actor with the naming of Laurence Fishburne for playing the brutal Ike Turner in 'What's Love Got To Do With It.'
The other nominees went according to form: Day-Lewis as the Irishman wrongly accused of a bombing in 'In the Name of the Father,' Golden Globe winner Tom Hanks as an AIDS-stricken attorney fired by his firm in 'Philadelphia,' Anthony Hopkins playing a disciplined butler in 'Remains of the Day' and Liam Neeson in the title role of 'Schindler's List.'
The awards will be presented March 21 in ceremonies televised live from the Los Angeles Music Center, hosted by comedian Whoopi Goldberg.
The nominees were announced by academy President Arthur Hiller and past nominee Christine Lahti in a pre-dawn event at the academy attended by a record number of news organizations from around the world.
The nominees for best director were Jim Sheridan for 'In the Name of the Father,' Jane Campion for 'The Piano,' James Ivory for 'The Remains of the Day,' Steven Spielberg for 'Schindler's List,' and Robert Altman for 'Short Cuts.'
Spielberg's nomination and the academy's apparent high regard for his emotional black-and-white epic, about a German businessman who saved more than 1,000 Jews from death in Nazi concentration camps, brings him one step closer to the peer recognition he has sought for years to add to his many successes at the box office.
Spielberg has been nominated six times before as a director and producer and he received the prestigious Irving Thalberg Award in 1986 for his 'consistently high quality' body of work, but he has yet to win a competitive Oscar.
Campion, whose film shared the prestigious Palme D'Or at Cannes with 'Farewell My Concubine,' becomes the second woman nominated for a directing Oscar. Her predecessor was Lina Wertmuller, nominated for directing and writing the screenplay for 'Seven Beauties' in 1976.
In the directors' field, only Altman was not nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award, usually the forecaster of who will win the Oscar statuette. Andrew Davis, director of 'The Fugitive,' is up for a DGA honor but not the Oscar.
In addition to Hunter and Thompson, nominees for best supporting actress were young Anna Paquin in 'The Piano,' Rosie Perez in 'Fearless,' and Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder in 'The Age of Innocence.'
The nominees for best supporting actor were Leonardo DiCaprio in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?,' Ralph Fiennes in 'Schindler's List,' Tommy Lee Jones in 'The Fugitive,' John Malkovich in 'In the Line of Fire,' and Pete Postlethwaite in 'In the Name of the Father.'
The contenders for best foreign-language film included Hong Kong's 'Farewell My Concubine,' Spain's 'Belle Epoque,' Taiwan's 'The Wedding Banquet,' Vietnam's 'The Scent of Green Papaya,' and the United Kingdom's 'Hedd Wyn,' performed in Welsh.
It was Britain's first nomination in the category. The Vietnamese entry is the first ever submitted from that country.
