Hollywood has a wide-open race after Oscar nominations pitted two powerful dramas by veterans Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood against the charm of films about wine tasting, Peter Pan and Ray Charles.

Director Scorsese’s epic film about billionaire Howard Hughes, “The Aviator,” clinched 11 nominations, followed by seven each for Eastwood’s gritty boxing fable, “Million Dollar Baby,” and “Finding Neverland,” .

“Ray,” a film that took director Taylor Hackford 15 years to find financing for, received six nominations. The quirky California wine country comedy “Sideways” garnered five, although, in one of the day’s big surprises, its much-praised star Paul Giamatti was not nominated for best actor. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Frank Pierson said on Tuesday the nominations added up “to a very interesting horse race. It is an open field.” Unlike in recent years, he noted there was no “Titanic” or “Lord of the Rings” towering over the competition and for the first time in a long while, the Oscars had some suspense.

“Fortune favours the prepared,” Leonardo Di Caprio, who received a best actor’s nomination for his role as Hughes in “The Aviator,” said in an interview. Di Caprio pushed the Scorsese project for years and said he spent hundreds of hours meeting people who knew Hughes and thinking about playing him as a man of “zest and obsessions” at the height of his powers, when he was about to go mad.

Asked what Hughes might have thought of his performance,Di Caprio said, “Well, the younger Hughes would have approved.” Meanwhile, Jamie Foxx, who many consider the front-runner for a best actor Oscar, said he knew he had Ray Charles’ approval and full cooperation.

The Academy Awards will be presented on February 27 in a red-carpet ceremony in Los Angeles and broadcast live by ABC. “The Aviator” was distributed by Miramax, a unit of The Walt Disney Co., Initial Entertainment Group and Warner Bros., the studio owned by Time Warner “Million Dollar Baby” was also distributed by Warner Bros. “Finding Neverland” was distributed by Miramax. “Ray” was distributed by Universal, a unit of General Electric-controlled NBC Universal, while “Sideways” was distributed by Fox Searchlight and 20th Century Fox of News Corp.