Entertainment Dec. 12, 2008 - 06:40AM JST ( 1 )

BEVERLY HILLS —

Heavyweight movie stars took center stage on Thursday as Hollywood’s awards season got underway with the unveiling of nominees for next month’s Golden Globe Awards.

A slew of A-list talent were among the nominees named at an early morning ceremony in Beverly Hills, with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie all picking up nods.

The nominations set the stage for a star-studded extravaganza at the Jan 11 red carpet event, in stark contrast to last year’s show that was reduced to a celebrity-free press conference by the Hollywood writers’ strike.

The Golden Globes are seen as an important staging post ahead of the Academy Awards, offering clues to which films will be successful at the Oscars ceremony approximately six weeks later on Feb 22.

No one film emerged as the overwhelming favorite in Thursday’s nominations, with love story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” political thriller “Frost/Nixon” and “Doubt” sharing five nominations each.

Both “Benjamin Button” and “Frost/Nixon” cemented their status as Oscars contenders however with nominations in the key categories of best drama, best director and best actor.

“Benjamin Button,” an adaptation of an F Scott Fitzgerald short story, stars heart-throb Pitt as a man who ages in reverse.

The film faces competition in the best picture race from “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Frost/Nixon,” “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road.”

Pitt’s rivals in the best actor drama race include DiCaprio, who plays a frustrated 1950s suburbanite in “Revolutionary Road,” Sean Penn, a trailblazing gay politician in “Milk,” Frank Langella, disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon in “Frost/Nixon” and Mickey Rourke, a washed up brawler in “The Wrestler.”

In the best actress drama race Pitt saw partner Jolie nominated for her performance as a mother searching for her son in Clint Eastwood’s period film “Changeling.”

Other nominees included Anne Hathaway for “Rachel Getting Married,” Streep for her performance as a tyrannical nun in “Doubt,” Kristin Scott Thomas in “I’ve Loved You So Long” and British actress Kate Winslet for her role opposite DiCaprio in “Revolutionary Road.”

Winslet, who has yet to win a Globe despite five previous nominations, also received a nod in the best supporting actress category for her role as a former concentration camp guard in “The Reader.”

Awards season pundits and film critic Pete Hammond said the galaxy of stars reflected last year’s disastrous strike-hit Globes.

“Let’s face it—they wanted the big stars to show up at this show this year,” Hammond said on the Los Angeles Times’ theenvelope.com website.

“Last year they were shut out of the show completely. We didn’t have a Golden Globes. Now we have Tom Cruise, we have Brad Pitt, we have Angelina Jolie, we have Leonardo DiCaprio.

“This is going to be star-studded and they are aware of that.”

Meanwhile, Australian actor Heath Ledger received a posthumous nomination in the best supporting actor category for his acclaimed performance in Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight.”

Ledger, who died of a prescription drugs overdose in January, faces stiff competition from Tom Cruise, Ralph Fiennes, Philip Seymour-Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr.

Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes, which are decided by around 80 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, have separate best picture awards for dramas and musicals.

Wire reports