The nominations for the Golden Globe Awards were announced on Thursday morning, with 12 Years a Slave garnering seven nods and seeming frontrunner Lee Daniels' The Butler shut out. The nominees were announced by Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde and Aziz Ansari.
12 Years a Slave was recognized with seven nominations — more than any other film — with nods for Best Picture - Drama, Best Actor in a Drama for Chiwetel Ejiofor, Best Supporting Actor for Michael Fassbender and Best Supporting Actress for newcomer Lupita Nyong'o. Steve McQueen is also a contender for Best Director, and a win could put him on the fast track for a historic Best Director prize at the Academy Awards. The film was also nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.
Ejiofor is a double-nominee this year, also garnering a nod for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, for his role in Dancing on the Edge, a miniseries about a Black jazz ensemble that gets entangled in aristocratic England in the 1930s. The series is also a nominee in the Best TV Movie or Mini-Series category.
Similarly, Idris Elba was also recognized for both film and television. Elba got his first major awards season nod in the Best Actor - Drama category, for his role as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.  The film also earned nods for Best Original Score and Best Song ("Ordinary Love" by U2) — as well as a Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for Luther.
This means Ejiofor and Elba, two of the hottest British imports to hit Hollywood in years, will compete in two Best Actor categories.
Lee Daniels' The Butler was surprisingly shut out from all categories, with Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, both favored for Oscar nods, ignored in the acting race.
In the television categories, Kerry Washington was nominated for her role as crisis fixer Olivia Pope on Scandal, but the show itself was left off of the list of Best Television Drama nominees. 
Don Cheadle was also nominated for House of Lies. 
The Butler  fared better at yesterday's SAG Awards nominations, where the film and 12 Years a Slave were the most-nominated films of the year (they had a combined seven nominations). Both films were nominated for Best Acting By a Cast, Best Actor (Ejiofor for 12 Years and Whitaker for The Butler) and Best Supporing Actress (Nyong'o for 12 Years and Winfrey for The Butler), with 12 Years nabbing an additional nomination for Best Supporting Actor (Fassbender). Washington, Cheadle and Angela Bassett (for her part as Coretta Scott King in Betty & Coretta) were also nominated in television categories.

Together, the SAG Award and Golden Globe nominations are widely recognized as the starting gun in the race to the Oscars, with nominees deemed frontrunners for Academy Award nominations. The SAG Awards show will take place on January 18, 2014 while the Globes will bow on January 12 in Los Angeles, California.

Click here for a full list of SAG Award nominees and here for all the Golden Globe nominees.
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(Photo: Plan B Entertainment)