Three Jewish Hollywood heavyweights will go head to head at this year's Academy Awards.

Following in the footsteps of the Golden Globes, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and Aaron Sorkin could all see their films triumph in the Best Picture category.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, a film based on a novel by Jewish author Jonathan Safran Foer, was also nominated in the category.

Mr Spielberg's tearjerker War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, was nominated for Best Picture as well as in the Cinematography and Music categories.

Midnight in Paris, Mr Allen's salute to romance in the French capital, gets him a nod for Best Director, while Mr Sorkin's baseball story Moneyball could also take home an award for its editing.

Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for Footnote, his comedy about rival Bible scholars at Hebrew University. Mr Cedar won a Best Screenplay award for it at last year's Cannes film festival.The film is up against a Polish love story about a Pole who hid Jews from the Nazis in the sewers. In Darkness, by Agnieszka Holland, is based on a true story.

The Oscars take place on February 26 and will be presented by actor Billy Crystal.