Best Actor nominees George Clooney and Jean Dujardin have hit the Academy Award red carpet, among the first group of A-listers in California.
Stars including Clooney, Jessica Chastain and the star of The Artist, Berenice Bejo, greeted fans, signed autographs and posed for photographers ahead of the event.
Bejo, nominated for supporting actress for her role in the film, was accompanied on the red carpet by her husband - the film's director Michel Hazanavicius.
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Dujardin hopes to become the first Frenchman to win best actor and his The Artist is favoured to become the only silent movie to take the best-picture prize since the first Oscar ceremony 83 years ago.
Christopher Plummer is in line to become the oldest acting winner ever at 82. Meryl Streep might join the acting three-peat club with a third Academy Award.
Along with Streep, Hollywood's big night has plenty of returning stars, too, with past Oscar winners and nominees such as Clooney, Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, Michelle Williams and Nick Nolte in the running again.
The show also has a returning favourite as ringmaster: After an eight-year absence, Billy Crystal is back for his ninth time as host.
Because of a change in voting rules, the Oscars feature nine best-picture nominees for the first time, instead of the 10 they had the past two years.
Competing against The Artist for the top honour are Clooney's family drama The Descendants; the Deep South tale The Help, featuring best-actress nominee Viola Davis and supporting-actress favourite Octavia Spencer; and the Paris adventure Hugo, from director Martin Scorsese.
Also in the line-up: the romantic fantasy Midnight in Paris, from writer-director Woody Allen; Pitt's baseball tale Moneyball and his family saga The Tree of Life; the World War I epic War Horse, directed by Steven Spielberg; and Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock's September 11 story Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
Hugo leads with 11 nominations, with The Artist right behind with 10.
