Lincoln and Bond go head to head for award

US civil war saga, Lincoln, musical Les Miserables and the Osama bin Laden thriller, Zero Dark Thirty, are among the best picture nominees from the Producers Guild of America.

Other contenders are the Iran hostage-crisis thriller Argo; low-budget critical favourite Beasts of the Southern Wild; slave-turned-bounty-hunter saga Django Unchained; shipwreck story Life of Pi; first-love tale Moonrise Kingdom; lost-souls romance Silver Linings Playbook; and James Bond adventure Skyfall.

Downton Abbey is nominated for best TV drama while Disney dominated the guild’s animation category with three out of the five nominees — Brave, Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph.

The other nominees in that category are Focus Features’ ParaNorman and Paramount’s Rise of the Guardians.

Along with honours from other Hollywood professional groups such as actors, directors and writers’ guilds, the producer prizes help sort out contenders for the Academy Awards.

The nominations for the Oscars will come out on Jan 10.

The guild — an association of Hollywood producers — will hand out its 24th annual prizes on Jan 26.

The big winner each year often goes on to claim the best-picture honour at the Oscars, which follow this year on Feb 24.