Oscars 2014: Notable facts and historic records that could be broken at 86th Academy Awards

Matthew McConaughey dropped 51lb to play Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club

WAITING WAITING…

Four people will be hoping that their hatfuls of nominations finally come good with their first win this evening:

Roger Deakins earns his 11th nomination for cinematography, for Prisoners

Thomas Newman earns his 12th best original score nomination, for Saving Mr Banks

Alexandre Desplat earns his sixth best original score nomination, for Philomena

Patricia Norris earns her sixth nomination for best costume design, for 12 Years a Slave

SLIM CHANCE

It's the Academy's all-time dieters' club awards! In third place is Robert De Niro, who cast off 35lb (as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, nominated for Best Actor 1976)

Next up, Matthew McConaughey, who dropped a skinnytastic 51lb (to play Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club, nominated for best actor 2014)

But our winner, by a quarter of an Oscar statuette, is Tom Hanks who shed a whopping 53lb for Castaway (2000, nominated for Best Actor)

X DOESN'T MARK THE SPOT

Captain Phillips is the first pirate film – at a push – to be nominated for Best Picture since Captain Blood in 1935. That didn't win either…

JUDI HEARTS HARVEY

Without Harvey Weinstein, Judi Dench is nothin'. Six of her seven nominations have come from Weinstein-distributed films, including Philomena, for which she is nominated for Best Actress this year

GLOBAL BOX-OFFICE TAKE OF THE BEST PICTURE NOMINEES:

Gravity: $701,848,128

The Wolf of Wall Street: $338,260,447

Captain Phillips: $218,123,763

American Hustle: $216,418,815

12 Years a Slave: $117,564,723

Philomena: $74,032,578

Dallas Buyers Club: $34,439,576

Her: $28,078,751

Nebraska: $17,894,665

IT'S A CUMBERS GAME

Benedict Cumberbatch (pictured above) is this year's lucky charm, popping up in four films with nominations: August: Osage County, 12 Years a Slave, Star Trek Into Darkness and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

THIRD TIME LUCKY?

Sadly, in the 21st century, this is something to be noted: Steve McQueen, nominated for the Best Director award for 12 Years a Slave, is only the third black director to be nominated in the category, following John Singleton (Boyz n The Hood, 1991) and Lee Daniels (Precious, 2009)

Jared Leto has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club

THE TRANSGENDER EXPRESS

For his turn as an HIV-positive transgender woman in Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto (pictured above) joins a select club of actors nominated for trans roles:

Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game, 1992)

Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry, 1999, won)

Felicity Huffman (Transamerica, 2005)

Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs, 2011)

A VINTAGE YEAR

Let's hear it for the olds. If Bruce Dern, 77, wins in the Best Actor category (for Nebraska) he'll be nearly a year older than the current wrinkliest winner, Henry Fonda (On Golden Pond, 1981). And should 84-year-old June Squibb totter home with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, she'll have seven years on Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India, 1985)