Academy Awards race begins

More than 300 movies are battling to win a highly-coveted spot in the Oscars' best picture category.

A total of 311 films qualified to compete for the five nominations for best picture at the Oscars next year.

The academy partly attributed the rise to the increase of feature-length documentaries - 35 in US cinemas this year compared to 15 last year.

Oscar nominations will be announced on January 31 and the Awards ceremony will take place on March 5 in Los Angeles.