Oscars 2013: Best Picture nominees

Nine films have been nominated for Best Picture of the Year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, representing a broad range of storytelling and cinematic craft, from period dramas and musicals to taut suspense, intimate character dramas, a 3-D fable of survival and humanism, and an homage to genre movie-making at its most entertainingly outrageous.

Click through this gallery to go behind the scenes with each nominee, and then take our poll to vote for which film you think should win the Oscar for Best Picture.

The 85th Academy Awards will be presented February 24. And the nominees are . . .

By CBSNews.com senior editor David Morgan

Credit: CBS News

Based on the New York Times bestseller by Yann Martel (winner of the Man Booker Prize), "Life of Pi" chronicles the epic struggle for survival by a castaway stranded in the middle of the ocean, who shares his lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.

On a broad scale, the visually-audacious film -- incorporating lush visual effects and 3-D cinematography -- is a celebration of the power of storytelling and the search for meaning in the universe. But it is also a tale of how one young man's life was changed owing to his insatiable curiosity, intelligence and compassion.

The 20th Century Fox release was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

How is divinity made known in a world in which chaos seems rampant, and where Nature's cruelty is both daunting and necessary? A young Indian nicknamed Pi (played as a teenager by Suraj Sharma) seeks spiritual affirmation by exploring many different faiths, to understand human behavior. But the son of a zookeeper learns early lessons about animal consciousness from his father, after a close call in the animal cages.

"The tiger is not your friend!" his father says. "Animals don't think like we do; people who forget that get themselves killed!"

Credit: 20th Century Fox

As Pi's family emigrates to Canada, the cargo ship carrying their menagerie of zoo animals is lost in a storm. Pi survives, and alone clamors aboard a lifeboat -- which he soon finds is occupied by several animals, including a Bengal Tiger.

The adventure -- told in flashback by the elder Pi to a visiting writer -- promises to prove the existence of God, but in ways unpredictable to the young man.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

The tiger (named Richard Parker due to a clerical error) makes short work of the other animals on board the lifeboat, but Pi's wits keep him safe, barely, as he endures the hardships and loneliness of weeks on the open ocean.

His isolation with Richard Parker leads to further questioning about the meaning of life, and whether his father was right about animal consciousness. To the filmmakers' great credit, the animals are never anthropomorphized; their behavior is accurate, and as mesmerizing as in a nature documentary involving predators and prey.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Ang Lee, who won a Best Director Academy Award for "Brokeback Mountain" (2005) and was also nominated for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000), received Oscar and Directors Guild nominations for "Life of Pi." It was Lee's first time filming in 3-D.

"I wanted the experience of the film to be as unique as Yann Martel's book," said Lee, "and that meant creating the film in another dimension. 3-D is a new cinematic language, and in 'Life of Pi' it's just as much about immersing audiences in the characters' emotional space as it is about the epic scale and adventure."

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Because of the hazards of shooting with a live tiger in a small space -- and in a water tank, no less -- the majority of shots with Richard Parker (about 86 percent) feature a computer-animated animal. L.A.-based effects house Rhythm & Hues (which won Oscars for "The Golden Compass" and the talking animals of "Babe"), under Oscar-nominated FX supervisor Bill Westenhofer, built a digital tiger that accurately and vividly captured the musculature, folds of skin, and millions of fur follicles of a real tiger.

The storms at sea, including the sinking ocean liner, were created by effects house MPC.

In all, about 1,300 digital artists worked on "Life of Pi."

Credit: Rhythm & Hues

Bioluminescence, as seen in "Life of Pi."

Actor Suraj Sharma spent much of the shoot in the largest self-generating wave tank ever constructed for a film, in Taichung, Taiwan. The tank measured more than 200 feet long, 100 feet wide and 13 feet deep, and contained 1.7 million gallons of water, which could be manipulated to create different conditions. The set was augmented for green-screen filming, in order to accommodated digitally created waves, skies, and even a computer construct of the lifeboat itself, in addition to the animals joining Pi on his journey.

"The ocean has its own moods," Sharma said. "It can feel like a monster, or it can be a mirror. It's both a killer and a savior. The ocean is a beautiful thing."

Credit: 20th Century Fox

The mythical tale "Beasts of the Southern Wild" uses magical realism to evoke the world and personality of young Hushpuppy, a six-year-old girl living with her father in a Louisiana bayou fishing community called the Bathtub. Threatened by a deluge and family illness, Hushpuppy asserts her considerable will to survive natural catastrophe and loss.

A prize-winner at the Sundance Film Festival, the Fox Searchlight release by first-time director Behn Zeitlin is nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Fox Searchlight

HUSHPUPPY: "One day, the storm's gonna blow, the ground's gonna sink, and the water's gonna rise up so high, there ain't gonna be no Bathtub, just a whole bunch of water. But me and my Daddy, we stay right here. We who the earth is for."

Adapted from Lucy Alibar's stage play "Juicy and Delicious," and photographed in luminous 16mm, "Beasts" captures a child's-eye view of unrelenting Nature, and the scope of a world that is both a territory to be claimed as one's birthright and beyond one's ability to control.

Credit: Cinereach

It was then-five-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis' poise, and her fearlessness, that caused director Zeitlin to pick her out from among 4,000 girls who tried out.

"She was always the most gigantic personality in the room," Zeitlin told CBS News.

Credit: Fox Searchlight

During Quvenzhane Wallis' audition in the public library in her hometown of Houma, La., Zeitlin asked her to throw a stuffed animal at the producer with whom she was running lines. "And I told him that's not right," she recalled.

"It's not right to throw things at people you don't know - she was being defiant, but she was being defiant on the grounds of right and wrong," said Zeitlin. "And that's who Hushpuppy is. She's this incredibly defiant warrior girl. I don't think I could have articulated that about her character until that moment in the audition."

Left: Wallis as Hushpuppy, opposite Dwight Henry as her father, Wink.

Credit: Fox Searchlight

Left: Director Benh Zeitlin and Quvenzhane Wallis accept the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Award for "Beasts of the Southern Wild" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, January 28, 2012 in Park City, Utah.

Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Actress Quvenzhane Wallis and actor Dwight Henry arrive at the premiere of "Beasts of the Southern Wild" at the Joy Theater in New Orleans on June 25, 2012.

As it was for Wallis, "Beasts" was the first acting role for Henry, a baker whose shop was across the street from the film's production office. On a lark he went for an audition, and to impress his prospective leading lady brought boxes of goodies. "She looked at the boxes, the big, beautiful eyes opened up, and she smiled," Henry told CBS News' Michelle Miller. "And I knew I had the part. I knew I had it!"

No only did he get the part; Henry won the Best Supporting Actor Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Quvenzhane Wallis accepts the Best Young Actor/Actress Award for "Beasts of the Southern Wild" onstage at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards, held at Barker Hangar on Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif.

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

In 1979, radical Iranian students inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini broke into the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and kidnapped 52 U.S. diplomats and staffers, beginning a hostage situation that ultimately lasted 14 months. What was not publicly known at the time was that six other Embassy staffers who fled the compound through a secret exit were holed up at the residences of Canadian diplomats, who protected them until they could be transported out of the country.

Ben Affleck directed and stars in this thriller, based on those true events, about a CIA analyst's plan to rescue the Americans by pretending they are members of a Canadian film crew preparing to shoot a science fiction movie.

The Warner Brothers release was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Warner Brothers

While CIA Analyst Tony Mendez (Affleck) has little trouble slipping in to Tehran, "exfiltrating" six others was a far more complicated matter, carrying the risk that some or all could be captured as spies and executed.

Credit: Warner Brothers

The incredible operation mounted to free them involved the creation of a fake Hollywood production company, trade ads announcing the filming of "Argo" ("A cosmic conflagration," the tagline promised), and the assistance of legendary movie makeup artist John Chambers, who had received an Oscar for "Planet of the Apes" (and who had assisted the CIA on several clandestine operations in the past).

First revealed by Mendez in his 2000 book, "The Master of Disguise," and then in a 2006 Wired article, it was a plot that, if a screenwriter had concocted it, no studio exec would have thought believable.

Credit: Variety

Shot in Turkey, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., "Argo" expertly captures the tension created by the rise of Islamic zealots in Iran. The riot outside the Embassy was recreated in Istanbul, with Affleck and others shooting on site with 16mm and 8mm cameras to reproduce a newsreel feel. Interiors of the Embassy were shot at the Veteran's Administration building north of Los Angeles.

Credit: Warner Brothers

Affleck, who previously directed two well-received dramas, "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town," told "CBS This Morning" that it was a challenge to "synthesize comedy and this kind of nail-biting thriller," while keeping the integrity of the story.

Certain real-life people were combined as characters (the Americans were held at two Canadian diplomats' homes, not one), and suspense elements were heightened.

"It is, after all, a drama," Affleck said. "But we were very fortunate in that we could stay faithful to the spirit of what happened, because the truth of what happened was incredibly compelling."

Credit: Keith Bernstein/Warner Bros.

To simulate the claustrophobia and fear experienced by the hostages, and to help the actors gain the familiarity with one another, Affleck made the cast live together for a week at the L.A. suburb home used as the location of the Canadian's Ambassador's residence, outfitted in period decor. Cut off the world, without Internet or iPhones, the actors were reduced to reading 1979 magazines and newspapers, and watching old films on ancient VCRs.

"I wanted them to get comfortable with one another in a way that felt natural," Affleck said. "It's much harder to 'act' familiarity. It's more of a chemical thing; your body relaxes and you adopt a certain posture and talk to people differently."

Credit: Warner Brothers

Also featured in the cast was Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad," "Drive") as Mendez's CIA boss; John Goodman as makeup artist John Chambers, whose assistance in clandestine operations is not just a patriotic move, it's a creative and artistic challenge; and Alan Arkin (an Academy Award-winner for "Little Miss Sunshine") as a Hollywood producer roped into lending his name to the fake film.

Credit: Warner Brothers

Ben Affleck was nominated for Best Director by the Directors Guild of America and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but not for the Academy Award, in what many took to be a snub by the Directors branch.

Left: Afleck accepts the award for Best Director for "Argo" during the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Affleck also won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America.

Credit: AP Photo/NBC

Michael Haneke's drama of an octogenarian couple facing a life-altering crisis -- winner of the top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Awards, and named Best Picture of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association -- is about accepting the end of a lifetime's passion.

A Sony Pictures Classics release nominated for five Academy Awards, "Amour" is the first foreign-language film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar since 2006's "Letters From Iwo Jima."

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), a former music teacher, suffers a debilitating stroke. Through her slow recovery and then decline, her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) takes on her care almost single-handedly, eager to protect her from the unfeeling care of a home or an impersonal hired nurse.

But Georges' attempt to protect his wife is questioned by their daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), who feels shunted aside from the crisis facing her mother.

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

"Amour" shows the lengths to which Georges goes to care for his wife despite the enormous stress her declining state places on him. Yet the film is not a depressing liturgy of ill health; it is in fact a celebration of the bond of partners who are facing a fact of life: that life does come to an end, and rarely in a manner under our control.

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

The drama of "Amour" is staged with the precision that is characteristic of the work of Austrian director Michael Haneke, whose best-known films include "The Piano Teacher," "Cache," "Funny Games" and "The White Ribbon," a 2010 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Haneke said the film -- confined to the couple's Parisian apartment -- was natural in that, "When you're old and you're elderly, life is reduced to the four walls that you live in.

"I could have opened the story up -- I could have made drama that included everything around, scenes in hospital, everything, to make this a socially critical film that you often see on television, but that wasn't my concern. What I was focusing on was the love story."

Haneke (pictured with Trintignant) received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for "Amour."

Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

"Amour" is graced with very emotionally and physically revealing performances by its veteran actors.

Emmanuelle Riva came to international attention with her performance in Alain Renais' 1959 drama "Hiroshima, mon amour" (pictured top, with Eiji Okada). Riva's other credits include Jean-Pierre Melville's "Leon Morin, Priest," Marco Bellocchio's "The Eyes, The Mouth," and Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors: Blue." With her Oscar nomination for "Amour," Riva becomes the oldest performer ever to receive a Best Actress nomination. (Previously, Best Actress winner Jessica Tandy for "Driving Miss Daisy" and nominee Edith Evans for "The Whisperers" were honored at age 80.)

Jean Louis Trintignant (pictured with Anouk Aimee in Claude Lelouch's 1966 romance "A Man and a Woman") has appeared in nearly 140 films and TV movies, including Rene Clement's "Is Paris Burning," Costa-Gavras' "Z," Eric Rohmer's "My Night at Maud's," Ettore Scola's "Passione d'amore," Francois Truffaut's "Confidentially Yours," and Kieslowski's "Three Colors: Red."

Credit: Zenith International/Allied Artists

"Zero Dark Thirty" is a thrilling account of the manhunt for terror leader Osama bin Laden, from the fruitless efforts of CIA agents to track down al Qaeda's leadership to the May 1, 2011 raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was cornered and killed.

Directed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"), the film received Best Picture and Best Director Awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But it has also stirred controversy in some quarters for its depiction of torture by U.S. intelligence agents -- dramatizations which some accuse of condoning the practice, but which Bigelow says merely represent a truthful telling of the decade-long war on terror.

Credit: Columbia Pictures

Midway in writing a film on the search for bin Laden when it was announced that he had been killed, director Kathryn Bigelow (left, on location) and screenwriter Mark Boal revised the project into a procedural of the successful manhunt, which they researched by meeting with intelligence officials. They denied, however, accusations by some lawmakers that they had received classified information.

"We never requested classified information or was I aware that classified information was coming my way," she told CBS News' Charlie Rose, reiterating that "to the best of our knowledge," they did not receive information that compromised American intelligence operatives.

Bigelow did say that the film's characters are "all based on real people," and in some cases represent combinations of real figures.

Credit: Sony Pictures

Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA analyst leading the hunt for terror leader Osama bin Laden. It is Maya's singular will and laser-focus that pushes through the agency's bureaucracy and tunnel vision to pursue leads that prove fruitful.

Credit: Sony Pictures

A graduate of Juilliard, Jessica Chastain burst onto the film scene in 2011 with a flurry of features which -- owing to the viscissitudes of release schedules -- hit movie screens all at once: Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life," Al Pacino's "Wilde Salome," "Take Shelter," "Coriolanus," "The Debt," "Texas Killing Fields," and "The Help," for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

Chastain told the Hollywood Reporter that, while shooting scenes in which she witnessed torture, she had to go against everything she had learned as an actress. "I'm playing a character that's been trained to be unemotional and analytically precise. My whole life, I've been trained to be emotional," she said. "During those scenes, anything I felt -- it was like wearing a straitjacket."

Credit: Sony Pictures

Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound was built from scratch in Jordan, where the film's dramatic final sequence -- played out virtually in real-time -- was shot using Gerry-rigged night vision scopes (because actual military hardware could not be exported to Jordan).

Credit: Sony Pictures

Amazingly, neither director Kathryn Bigelow, nor cinematographer Greig Fraser, nor production designer Jeremy Hindle were nominated for Oscars.

However, among "Zero Dark Thirty"'s technical crew, editors William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor, and sound editor Paul N.J. Ottosson, were nominated.

Credit: Sony Pictures

Actress Jessica Chastain arrives at the premiere of "Zero Dark Thirty" at the Dolby Theatre on Dec. 10, 2012, in Los Angeles.

Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

A young man is released from a mental institution after being treated following a violent episode. Convinced his road to better mental health will lead him back to his estranged wife, he enlists the help of a young woman to bypass a restraining order, but at an unusual price.

This affecting comedy-drama, adapted from the novel by Matthew Quick, is a compassionate look at the challenges faced by families touched by bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses -- and a mature take on movie romance.

The Weinstein Company release was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Weinstein Company

As her price for delivering a letter to the ex-wife of Pat (Bradley Cooper), Tiffany (played by Jennifer Lawrence) asks Pat to be her partner in an upcoming dance competition. Whatever resistance he feels toward the idea is overcome by his desire to get back with his wife -- which, contradictorily, puts him in the arms of Tiffany.

Credit: Weinstein Company

David O. Russell, who received Oscar nominations for both writing and directing "Silver Linings Playbook," said of Matthew Quick's source novel, "Although 'Silver Linings Playbook' was fiction, it was likewise filled with very intense authentic people in a very specific local world the author knew well: emotional homes, people under great pressure, surprising drama, and unintended comedy. I am very drawn to these worlds, I find them fascinating. A certain place, a certain time, certain foods, certain rituals, unlike anything else, yet all the emotions and yearnings for love and respect and livelihood are deeply universal."

More fascinating for Russell was the deeply personal hold the story had for him, since his 18-year-old son had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. "My son, I've been through this with my son and his friend, and that's why I did the movie," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "So when it's personal, you know that you're coming from the right place. You're not coming from a reckless place. You're coming from a very careful place."

In fact, Russell gave his son Matthew a small part, that of an obtrusive and rather uncaring neighbor.

Credit: Weinstein Company

Bradley Cooper knew there was lot at stake playing a role that was so meaningful to director David O. Russell. "The pressure that I felt was based on how personal I knew the movie was," Cooper told "CBS This Morning." "There's a lot at stake when someone's asking you do something that means so much to them."

But some of that pressure was relieved by the natural chemistry Cooper and co-star Jennifer Lawrence had onscreen. "You can't fake that," Cooper said, adding, "That's just luck."

Credit: Weinstein Company

Bradley Cooper received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for "Silver Linings Playbook." His other credits include TV's "Sex and the City" and "Alias"; "The Hangover" and its sequels; "All About Steve"; "The A-Team"; "The Words"; and "The Place Beyond the Pines."

Credit: Weinstein Company

Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro (who co-starred with the 2011 thriller "Limitless") attend the premiere of "Silver Linings Playbook," benefiting the Tribeca Film Institute, at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Nov. 12, 2012, in New York.

Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company

Jennifer Lawrence (who auditioned for director David O. Russell via Skype) was previously nominated for an Oscar for her performance in "Winter's Bone," and received her second Best Actress nomination for "Silver Linings Playbook."

Her other credits include "The Burning Plain," "Like Crazy," "X-Men: First Class." "The Hunger Games," "House at the End of the Street," and the upcoming "Serena" (also co-starring Bradley Cooper), and "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."

Credit: The Weinstein Company

Robert De Niro, a two-time Oscar-winner (for "The Godfather Part II" and "Raging Bull"), received his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance as Pat's father in "Silver Linings Playbook."

Veteran Australian actress Jacki Weaver ("Picnic at Hanging Rock"), a past Best Supporting Actress nominee for "Animal Kingdom," also received an Oscar nod, for Best Supporting Actress, making "Silver Linings Playbook" the first film since 1981's "Reds" to receive nominations in all four acting categories.

Credit: The Weinstein Company

Director David O. Russell (left, with Jennifer Lawrence, at the Academy Awards Nominations Luncheon) debuted in 1994 with the comedy "Spanking the Monkey," followed by "Flirting With Disaster," "Three Kings," and "I Heart Huckabees."

"The Fighter" (2010) earned Russell his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and Oscars for two of his actors, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo.

Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Actress Jennifer Lawrence speaks onstage at "Silver Linings Playbook" press conference during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 9, 2012 in Toronto, Canada.

Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Actor Bradley Cooper, foreground, accepts the award for Best Acting Ensemble for "Silver Linings Playbook," at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. Also on stage, from left: Director David O. Russell, Chris Tucker, Jacki Weaver and Jennifer Lawrence.

Credit: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

Robert De Niro presents Jennifer Lawrence with the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for "Silver Linings Playbook," during the 19th Annual SAG Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium, Jan. 27, 2013, in Los Angeles.

Credit: Mark Davis/Getty Images

Actress Jennifer Lawrence arrives at The Hollywood Reporter Nominees' Night at Spago on Feb. 4, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision for The Hollywood Reporter/AP Images

In Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," a western set just before the Civil War, a bounty hunter purchases a slave who can lead him to a trio of wanted men. Together they become partners in killing outlaws wanted dead or alive, before embarking on a dangerous mission to rescue the slave's wife from a sinister plantation owner.

The film pays homage to spaghetti Westerns and genre films, and is thus rampant with bloody violence and humor, embroidered with dialogue that is colorful, cutting and full of surprises -- not to mention more expressions of the "N-word" than any movie in recent memory.

The Weinstein Company release was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Weinstein Company

Director Quentin Tarantino, an Oscar-winner for his script for "Pulp Fiction" and a Best Director nominee for "Pulp" and "Inglourious Basterds," received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for "Django Unchained," for which he also won the Golden Globe.

Jamie Foxx had high praise for his director, without mincing words: "There's Hollywood, and then there's Quentin Tarantino," he told CBSNews.com's Jessica Derschowitz.

Kelly Washington (Brunhilda) said of the director, "He is not afraid of violence, and darkness, and the dark side of the soul."

Credit: Andrew Cooper, SMPSP / The Weinstein Company

The name "Django" is actually taken from a 1966 spaghetti Western by Sergio Corbucci called "Django," which starred Franco Nero (who appears in a cameo role in Tarantino's film). The popularity of that movie, Tarantino noted, led many imitators to label their films with "Django" in the title, even if there was no corresponding character.

"I like evoking the Django title for what it means to spaghetti Westerns and that mythology," Tarantino said. "At the same time, there's a 40-film series of non-related 'Django' rip-off sequels that are their own spot of spaghetti Western history. I'm proud to say that we are a new edition to the unrelated 'Django' rip-off sequels."

Credit: CBS News

The expert cast include Oscar-winners Jamie Foxx ("Ray") as Django, and Best Supporting Actor nominee Christoph Waltz ("Inglourious Basterds") as. Dr. King Schultz, a dentist-turned-bounty hunter.

Credit: Weinstein Company

When diCaprio read the part of Calvin Candie, owner of the plantation Candieland, the concept of the role -- which Tarantino had envisioned for an older actor -- changed considerably:

"His daddy's daddy's daddy started a cotton business and his daddy's daddy continued it and made it profitable, and his daddy made it even more profitable. Now, he's the fourth Candie in line to take over the cotton business and he's bored with it," the director said. "He doesn't care about cotton: that's why he's into the Mandingo fighters. But he's the petulant boy prince. He's Louis XIV in Versailles.

"So I wanted to really play with that idea, of King Louis XIV, but in the South . . . a fiefdom. He has the power of a king; he can execute people, or do whatever he wants."

Credit: The Weinstein Company

Samuel L. Jackson, who starred in Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for "Pulp Fiction," co-stars as Stephen, a house Uncle Tom who oversees Candieland's slaves with oily contempt.

Jackson said he was attracted to "Django" because the film did not whitewash this period of history. Also, he said, "It's always great to find a character on the inside of one of Quentin's stories to wrap myself around."

Credit: Weinstein Company

Cinematographer Robert Richardson, an Academy Award-winner for "JFK," "The Aviator" and "Hugo" (and a nominee for "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Snow Falling on Cedars" and "Inglourious Basterds"), is nominated for his work on "Django Unchained."

Shooting on film (as opposed to the 3-D "Hugo"), with widescreen anamorphic lenses, Richardson emulated the stylization of Italian spaghetti Westerns, and faced the challenge of lighting enormous vistas to simulate moonlight, as well as the dark, interior scenes of bloody violence. Locations included Simi Valley and Santa Clarita, Calif. (standing in for Texas); Jackson Hole, Wyo.; New Orleans, La.; and a historic plantation in Wallace, La., called Evergreen (which doubled as Candieland).

Credit: Weinstein Company

Christoph Waltz, winner of Best Supporting Actor in a Film for "Django Unchained," at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Waltz, who was known primarily to European television audiences before Tarantino picked him to play Col. Hans Landa in "Inglourious Basterds," said, "Quentin, you know that my indebtedness to you and my gratitude knows no words."

Credit: AP/NBC, Paul Drinkwater

Quentin Tarantino poses in the press room at the BAFTA Awards with his award for Best Original Screenplay for "Django Unchained," at the Royal Opera House, February 10, 2013 in London, England. Christoph Waltz also won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor.

Credit: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images

In Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," the Civil War president struggles to ensure that the Emancipation Proclamation -- a wartime executive order that freed the slaves -- is enshrined in law for all time by pushing for a constitutional amendment banning the practice.

Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," and written by Tony Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner ("Angels in America"), "Lincoln" is a vivid demonstration of the potency of political gamesmanship. At a time when our political system seems frozen by gridlock, the film shows how by sheer force of personality (and some carefully doled-out patronage jobs), mountains can be moved, and society can be forever changed.

Showcasing a masterful, Oscar-nominated performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, the DreamWorks release leads the race for this year's Academy Awards, with 12 nominations, including Best Picture.

Credit: Dreamworks

Goodwin told CBS News that Lincoln had a longer view -- that some of his political rivals couldn't understand that the president had to see beyond the war.

"When he finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he told an old friend of his (who had been with him when he had been earlier depressed, at one point he was almost suicidal), he said, 'I wish in a certain sense I could die, but I haven't done anything yet to be remembered by.' It's an incredible thing. It is not just ambition for power, it's not just for office. It's something larger. It was even larger than emancipation. It was to keep this democracy -- that was a beacon of hope to the world -- alive. If we had split apart, it would have been over."

Credit: DreamWorks

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, with David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Steward, and Hal Holbrook and Tim Blake Nelson as politicos Francis Preston Blair and Richard Schell, in the historical drama "Lincoln."

Credit: DreamWorks

Two-time Best Actor Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis (for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood") also received nominations for "In the Name of the Father" and "Gangs of New York."

Day-Lewis originally turned down Spielberg's offer to play Lincoln, based on earlier drafts of the screenplay. "As fascinated as I was by Abe, it was the fascination of a grateful spectator who longed to see a story told, rather than that of a participant," he wrote to the director.

Yet by the time he completed filming, Day-Lewis said of Lincoln, "I never, ever felt that depth of love for another human being that I never met."

Credit: DreamWorks

Two-time Academy Award winner Sally Field ("Norma Rae," "Places in the Heart") fought for the role of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, and was at one point rejected by Spielberg.

Field told CBS News' Mo Rocca she could not walk away from the role, telling Spielberg, "I am Mary," and bringing up the feistiness to demand a screen test.

Her pluck paid off. Daniel Day-Lewis flew from Ireland to test with her, and when they met for the first time they were both in full costume. "Everyone fell away and it was only him walking toward me with this hat on, head cocked to the side and a slight smirk on his face. And I gave him my smirk back and waited till he was at my side. I rose and gave him my hand. He kissed it. I said, 'Mr. Lincoln.' He said, 'Mother.' And that's the way they addressed each other in real life - he either called her Mother or Molly."

Mary and her Abraham connected instantly - in a very modern way. "He started texting me, he would text me all the time, totally in character," Field said, "Sometimes he would just send me bizarre limericks. And I, as Mary, would write back, usually criticizing him," she laughed.

Credit: DreamWorks

Costume designer Joanna Johnston received an Oscar nomination for her period wardrobe, in a film with about 140 speaking parts -- mostly men.

The women characters' dresses were treasures, Johnston said, "because there were so few of them."

Credit: DreamWorks

Tommy Lee Jones (a Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner, for "The Fugitive") as the abolitionist Rep. Thaddeus Stevens caught in a moral quandary over the fight for a constitutional amendment, in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."

Jones received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance.

Credit: DreamWorks

Steven Spielberg (right, with Daniel Day-Lewis) spent more than 10 years researching his film about the 16th president.

"I've always wanted to tell a story about Lincoln. I saw a paternal father figure, someone who was completely, stubbornly committed to his ideals, his vision," he told CBS News' Lesley Stahl. "I think the film is very relevant for today. It's about leadership."

Credit: AP Photo/DreamWorks

Composer John Williams created a score that celebrated Americana, but which was comparatively muted and modest, much like the 16th president himself.

Spielberg said he and Williams made a conscious decision not to compete with the voice of actor Daniel Day-Lewis. "So we both exercised enormous restraint -- John with his orchestration, and me with my fancy shots," the director told CBS News. "I think both of us pulled back a bit, maybe stood in Lincoln's shadow."

For "Lincoln," Williams (a five-time Oscar-winner) received his 48th Academy Award nomination -- the most ever for a living honoree.

Play excerpt: "The People's House" from "Lincoln"

Credit: CBS News

Daniel Day Lewis with his award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama for "Lincoln" at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.

In addition to many critics groups' accolades, Day-Lewis also won the BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance.

Credit: AP/NBC, Paul Drinkwater

Based on Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, one of the most popular musicals ever staged -- a tale of romance, justice, vengeance, and an ex-convict seeking redemption, set against a backdrop of rebellion in 19th century France -- is translated to film by the Oscar-winning director of "The King's Speech."

Filmed in England and France, the Universal Pictures release was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Universal Pictures

Hugh Jackman stars as Valjean who, after his release after years of imprisonment for a petty infraction, is hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert (Russell Crowe) for breaking parole.

Having remade himself as a community leader and business owner, Valjean crosses paths with a former employee of his factory, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), whose degradation and descent into a life of prostitution spurs him to help her and her young daughter, as Javert remains hot on his heels.

First staged in France in 1980, the musical based on Victor Hugo's drama set in Revolutionary France (featuring music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, and lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel) was subsequently translated into 21 languages, and enjoyed long runs on London's West End, on Broadway, and around the globe.

Credit: Universal

Director Tom Hooper (an Oscar-winner for "The King's Speech") is a veteran of British television, including "EastEnders," "Cold Feet" and "Prime Suspect 6"; the HBO mini-series "Elizabeth I" (for which he won the Emmy Award); and "John Adams." His other feature film credits include "Red Dust" and "The Damned United."

Among the most-discussed directorial decisions made by Hooper was the choice to record the actors singing live on the set, rather than have them lip-sync to previously-recorded studio sessions. Though "Les Mis" was not the first movie to feature live performances ("Across the Universe" made use of the technique), it was used throughout, for a film with virtually no spoken dialogue.

"The problem when you're singing to playback is that it denies the actor of being in the moment because they have to stick to the millisecond of a plan laid down months before," he said. "Whereas, when they sing live, an actor has the freedom to create the illusion that the character is acting in the moment, which has a profound effect on the power and the realism of the performance."

Credit: Universal Pictures

The needs of actors to hear music playback in order to sing meant compromises in sets, on locations in France, and Greenwich, England, and on sound stages at PINEWOOD. Oscar-nominated production designer Eve Stewart had to make sure all sounds were as muffled as possible, from fitting horses with rubber shoes to draping blankets on rooftops to quietly absorb rain.

Stewart previously received Oscar nominations for "The King's Speech" and Mike Leigh's "Topsy-Turvy."

Credit: Universal Pictures

Hugh Jackman (here shooting at the historic Portsmouth dockyard in southern England) won a 2004 Tony Award for his performance in "The Boy From Oz," and has appeared on stage in "Carousel," "Oklahoma!," "Sunset Boulevard," and "Beauty and the Beast."

His film resume reflects a decidedly un-musical bias: The "X-Men" franchise, "Real Steel," "Australia," Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige," Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain," "Kate & Leopold," Woody Allen's "Scoop," "Van Helsing" and "Deception."

Jackman, who lost weight and even went without water for his early scenes as an emaciated convict, said of Valjean, "I've never had a role require more of me or take as much of a physical and emotional commitment." He received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for "Les Miserables."

Credit: Universal Pictures

Anne Hathaway -- whose credits include "The Princess Diaries," "Ella Enchanted," "Brokeback Mountain," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Alice in Wonderland," "One Day," and "The Dark Knight Rises" -- underwent a dramatic physical transformation to prepare for the role, cutting her hair and losing 25 pounds over the course of five weeks, as her character, the doomed Fantine, declines. "I'm not method, but I was playing a martyr. So any kind of suffering that I was going through I wouldn't feel it as suffering. I would have felt as she would, which was instant transformation."

Previously nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for "Rachel Getting Married," Hathaway received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her "Les Miserables" performance, the highlight of which was her singing "I Dreamed a Dream."

She was supportive of singing live on set: "When you have a story this dramatic, where there's no dialogue to see you through, and where everything is so in-the-moment, it's a lot of pressure to have to sing all the time, but it's still so spontaneous," she said. "It's a risk, but the benefits outweigh the potential cost."

Hathaway's performance also comes with a family pedigree: her mother, actress Kate McCauley Hathaway, played the same role in the U.S. touring company when Anne was seven years old.

Credit: Univrsal Pictures

Russell Crowe, a Best Actor Oscar-winner for "Gladiator," stars as Javert.

"Javert is a man with a very specific morality and a specific understanding of the way the world works: what is good and what is evil," he said. "When he is proved wrong, when a man he believes to be bad turns out to be good, Javert is broken."

Credit: Universal Pictures

Amanda Seyfried ("Mamma Mia") co-stars as Cosette.

She previously played Meryl Streep's daughter in the ABBA musical "Mamma Mia!," Seyfried's other credits include "Mean Girls"; "In Time," co-starring Justin Timberlake; "Red Riding Hood"; "Dear John"; "Letters to Juliet"; "Chloe"; "Gone"; and HBO's "Big Love."

Coming up for Seyfried:" The drama "Lovelace," about the world's first adult film star; and the comedy "The Big Wedding," starring opposite Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon and Katherine Heigl.

Credit: Universal Pictures

Samantha Barks as Eponine and Eddie Redmayne as Marius in "Les Miserables."

Making her feature film debut, Barks has already made a name for herself on the U.K. stage, in the musicals "Aladdin" and "Cabaret." She played Eponine opposite Nick Jonas in the 25th anniversary "Les Miserables" concert.

Redmayne, a Tony- and Olivier Award-winner for Michael Grandage's "Red," starred opposite Michelle Williams in "My Week With Marilyn." His other credits include the films "The Yellow Handkerchief," "Black Death," "Powder Blue," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "The Other Boleyn Girl," and "The Good Shepherd," and the TV productions of "The Pillars of the Earth" and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles."

Credit: Universal Pictures

Among the film's eight Academy Awards nominations was one for Best Original Song: "Suddenly," an addition to the original score, penned by the musical's creators, that helps preface a jump of many years in the narrative, as Valjean (Jackman) promises to care for the young Cosette (Isabelle Allen).

Credit: Universal Pictures

Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman pose for photographers as they arrive for the premiere of "Les Miserables" at the Odeon Leicester Square on Dec. 5, 2012, in London.

Credit: Jon Furniss/Invision/AP

Actress Anne Hathaway, winner of Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for "Les Miserables," poses in the press room during the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards, at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 13, 2013, in Beverly Hills, California. Hathway also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance.

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The 85th annual Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif.

For CBSNews.com's complete Oscar coverage, including interviews, photo galleries and video, click here.

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By CBSNews.com senior editor David Morgan

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