The latest James Bond film, Skyfall, could be making a late run for recognition at this year's Oscars after being named among the top 10 films of 2012 by the Producers Guild of America (PGA).
The guild also named awards season frontrunners Argo, Les Miserables, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook in its list of nominees for the Darryl F Zanuck award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures.
Most of the other contenders have also been feted by various critics' groups in the runup to the Academy Awards at the Dolby theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on 24 February. Quentin Tarantino's blood-spattered spaghetti western homage, Django Unchained, is starting to look a good bet for Oscar nominations after picking up another nod in the wake of its five Golden Globe nominations last month.
Ang Lee's Life of Pi is also beginning to cement itself following an impressive nine nominations in the Critics' Choice awards. Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which has been largely overlooked, makes the list of nominees, but there is no place for Paul Thomas Anderson's perennially ignored The Master.
Skyfall is the first Bond film to be nominated for the Darryl F Zanuck prize, which is seen as a decent bellwether for Oscars success. The winner of the award has gone on to secure the Academy Award for best film in each of the past five years. Last year, the PGA predicted seven of the eventual nine best picture Oscar contenders, including eventual winner The Artist.
In the animated film producer's category, Pixar's Brave will battle it out with Disney's Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph, Laika's ParaNorman and Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians. The winners of this year's Producers Guild of America prizes will be announced at a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles on on Saturday 26 January.
Full list of nominees
The Darryl F Zanuck award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures: Argo (Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov); Beasts of the Southern Wild (Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn); Django Unchained (Reginald Hudlin, Pilar Savone, Stacey Sher); Les Miserables (Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward, Cameron Mackintosh); Life of Pi (Ang Lee, Gil Netter, David Womark); Lincoln (Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg); Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson and Scott Rudin, Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales); Silver Linings Playbook (Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti, Jonathan Gordon); Skyfall (Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson); Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Megan Ellison).
Outstanding producer of animated theatrical motion pictures: Brave (Katherine Sarafian), Frankenweenie (Allison Abbate, Tim Burton), ParaNorman (Travis Knight, Arianne Sutner), Rise of the Guardians (Nancy Bernstein, Christina Steinberg), Wreck-It Ralph (Clark Spencer).
Outstanding producer of documentary theatrical motion pictures: A People Uncounted (Marc Swenker, Aaron Yeger), The Gatekeepers (Estelle Fialon, Philippa Kowarsky, Dror Moreh), The Island President (Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen), The Other Dream Team (Marius Markevicius, Jon Weinbach), Searching for Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn).
