Awards Watch: 2012 Oscar Trivia

With each new batch of Oscar nominations, there is a new batch of Oscar trivia. And this year is no different, including several record setters in Academy Award history, not to mention some possible record breakers come the Big Night.

Foreign Affairs: Amour is the fifth foreign language film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, joining Z, The Emigrants, Life is Beautiful and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; all but The Emigrants won the latter award.

No One at the Helm: If Argo wins Best Picture, it will be only the fourth time that a film won the top prize without a Best Director nomination. 1927-28's Wings took Best Picture at the very first Oscars, and1932's Grand Hotel won with no other nominations(!), while Driving Miss Daisy drove its way to a win without a driver in 1989.

King George: With Argo's Best Picture nod, George Clooney now has the distinction of being the only person in Oscar history to be nominated in six different categories.  He has been previously nominated for director, actor, supporting actor and writer in both the original and adapted screenplay categories.

The Long and the Short of It: At a mere 93 minutes, Beasts of the Southern Wild is the shortest of the Best Picture nominees, while Django Unchained, clocking in at 165 minutes, is the longest.

Very Productive: Lincoln co-producers Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg share the record for the most Best Picture nominations with eight each.

One Film More: This year's musical version isn't the first Les Misérables to be nominated for Best Picture. 20th Century Pictures' adaptation, starring Fredric March as Jean Valjean, was nominated in 1935.

Honestly Abe: If Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor for Lincoln, it will be his third, which would make him the most honored leading man in Academy history. Day Lewis is the second actor to be nominated for playing Abraham Lincoln, following Raymond Massey's nod in 1940 for Abe Lincoln in Illinois.

Generations: This year's Best Actress race boasts both the oldest (Amour's Emmanuelle Riva, age 85) and the youngest (Beast of the Southern Wild's Quvenzhané Wallis, age 9) nominees in the history of the category.

Déjà Vu: All the nominees in the Best Supporting Actor category are previous Oscar winners. If Silver Linings Playbook's Robert De Niro wins, he will be the first actor, male or female, to win one lead and two supporting Oscars. De Niro is also the most nominated acting nominee this year, with a total of seven career nominations.

They Really Really Really Like Her: If Sally Field wins Best Supporting Actress for Lincoln, she will be the only actor or actress to win all three Oscars for which she has been nominated.

An Oscar Hat Trick: Silver Linings Playbook has nominations in all four acting categories. The last film to achieve this was 1981's Reds.

Just Super: This year's acting nominations have a few former superheroes in the mix: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), plus supervilliain Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones). Also: Batman (George Clooney) and Daredevil (Ben Affleck) are up for Best Picture.

Double Dippin': All five Best Director nominees are nominated in one other category as well this year: Amour's Michael Haneke in Best Original Screenplay, Beast of the Southern Wild's Benh Zeitlin and Silver Linging Playbook's David O. Russel in Best Adapted Screenplay, and Lincoln's Steven Spielberg and Life of Pi's Ang Lee as producers in the Best Picture category.

Quit Your Belly Achin': Ben Affleck is an Oscar nominee this year, as co-producer of Argo.

All in the Family: With their nominations this year, screenwriter Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom) and composer Thomas Newman (Skyfall) bring their Oscar nominated families' totals to 24 and 87, respectively.

Snow Way: Both of 2012's Snow White movies -- Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman -- are nominated for Best Costume Design.

Alive at the Top: With his nomination this year for Lincoln, composer John Williams is now the most nominated living person. The only person with more is the late Walt Disney, with 59 total career nominations.

When Oscar Met James: With five nominations, Skyfall is now the most Oscar nominated James Bond movie. The previous record holder was 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, with three nods. The last Bond movie to be recognized by the Academy was 1981's For Your Eyes Only.  If Adele's title tune from Skyfall wins the Best Original Song trophy, it will be the first Bond song to do so.

Moonlighting: With his nomination for Best Original Song for "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted, Seth MacFarlane is only the fifth Oscar host to also be a nominee at the same ceremony. The others were David Niven in 1959, Michael Caine in 1973, Walter Matthau in 1976 and James Franco in 2011.

Great Clips: Michael Kahn is now the most nominated film editor with his eighth nomination this year for Lincoln.

Doubling the Odds: Sound mixer Andy Nelson was nominated for both Lincoln and Les Misérables, and film editor William Goldenberg got nods for both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.

Believe It or Not: If Wreck-It-Ralph wins for Best Animated Feature, it would be the first "home grown", non-Pixar Disney movie to win in that category.

Oscar Nominated Double Feature: Animated Short nominee Paperman was screened with Animated Feature nominee Wreck-It-Ralph.

This year's Academy Awards will be handed out Sunday February 24th on ABC.

Illustrations by Dean Walton.