BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic "Lincoln" led the Golden Globes with seven nominations Thursday, among them best drama, best director for Spielberg and acting honours for the British-born Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

Tied for second place Wednesday with five nominations, including best drama, are the Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and the slave-turned-bounty-hunter tale "Django Unchained."

Other best-drama nominees are the shipwreck story "Life of Pi" and the Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller "Zero Dark Thirty."

Nominated for best musical or comedy were the British retiree adventure "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"; the Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables"; the first-love tale "Moonrise Kingdom"; the fishing romance "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"; and the lost-soul romance "Silver Linings Playbook.

Along with Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg's epic, best dramatic actor contenders are Richard Gere as a deceitful Wall Streeter in "Arbitrage"; John Hawkes as a polio victim trying to lose his virginity in "The Sessions"; Joaquin Phoenix as a U.S. Navy veteran under the sway of a cult leader in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

Dramatic-actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst hunting Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; French-born Marion Cotillard as a whale biologist beset by tragedy in "Rust and Bone"; British-born Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock's strong-minded wife in "Hitchcock"; British-Australian Naomi Watts as a woman caught up in a devastating tsunami in "The Impossible"; and British-born Rachel Weisz as a woman ruined by an affair in "The Deep Blue Sea."

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