With her 15th Academy Award Oscar nomination this year, Meryl Streep extends her lead as the most nominated performer. Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson are tied at twelve nominations each.

This is Meryl Streep's 12th Academy Award® Oscar nomination in the Best Leading Actress category.

Streep's other leading role nominations were for The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Sophie's Choice (1982), for which she won the Oscar, Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), Ironweed (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), One True Thing (1998), Music of the Heart (1999) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

Meryl Streep's supporting role Oscar nominations were for The Deer Hunter (1978), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), for which she took home the Oscar, and Adaptation (2002).

Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the strict head of a Bronx Catholic school who suspects that a new priest may be abusing one of her students.

Sister Aloysius represents fearsome law and dogmatic order. The world, in her eyes, is going to hell each new day the students at St. Nicholas are allowed to use ballpoint pens ("penmanship is dying all across this country"). Yet her single-mindedness is far from simple-minded.

The arrival of a progressive priest at a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 leads to a confrontation with the tradition-minded nun who serves as its principal.

When Sister Aloysius suspects that Father Flynn may be taking an excessive interest in the school's first African-American student, she responds with a headstrong determination that is either a necessary defense of an abused boy or a heedless condemnation of an innocent man.

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep is a two-time Academy Award® winner and recipient of a recordbreaking 15 Oscar nominations.

Most recently, Streep starred in the box office smash Mamma Mia, a film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical based on the songs of ABBA.

She will next appear in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia as the famed master chef, Julia Child and will lend her voice to Wes Anderson's animated Fantastic Mr. Fox based on the novel by Roald Dahl.

Streep made her film debut in 1977's Julia opposite Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.

In her second screen role, Streep starred opposite Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter which earned Streep her first Academy Award® nomination.

The following year, Meryl Streep won an Academy Award® for her role opposite Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. She then received her third Academy Award® nomination for The French Lieutenant's Woman and later went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Sophie's Choice, where she starred alongside Peter MacNicol and Kevin Kline.

Other early film credits include Oscar-nominated performances in Mike Nichols' Silkwood, Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa, and Fred Schepisi's A Cry in the Dark, which also won her the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, The New York Film Critics Circle, and an AFI award. She also appeared in Mike Nichols' Heartburn and Woody Allen's Manhattan.

In 2003, Streep's work in The Hours won her SAG and Golden Globe nominations. That same year, her performance in Spike Jonze's Adaptation won her a Golden Globe for Supporting Actress and BAFTA and Oscar nominations. Streep's other recent works include The Manchurian Candidate; Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events; Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress as well as Academy Award, SAG and BAFTA nominations.

In theater, Streep appeared in the 1976 Broadway double-bill of "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" and "A Memory of Two Mondays," the former which won her the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Theater World Award and a Tony nomination. Other theater credits include "Secret Service;" "The Cherry Orchard;" the New York Shakespeare Festival productions of "Henry V" and "Measure for Measure" opposite Sam Waterston; the Brecht/Weill musical "Happy End;" "Alice at the Palace" which won her an Obie; Central Park Productions of "The Taming of the Shrew;" "The Seagull," and most recently in the Tony Kushner adaptation of "Mother Courage."

In TV, Streep won Emmys for the eight part mini-series "Holocaust" and for the Mike Nichols directed HBO movie Angels in America, which also won her Golden Globe and SAG Awards.

In 2004, Streep was honored with an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2008 was honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

2009 Best Lead Actress Oscar Nominations
81st Academy Awards 2009 Best Lead Actress Oscar Nominations

Anne Hathaway as Kym in "Rachel Getting Married"

As Kym, Anne Hathaway plays a self-absorbed recovering addict whose return home for her sister's wedding sparks a family conflict.

This is Anne Hathaway's first Oscar Academy Award nomination.

Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins in "Changeling"

As Christine Collins, Angelina Jolie portrays the mother of a missing child who takes on the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department in her frantic search for her son.

This Angelina Jolie's second Academy Award nomination and the first in this category. Jolie won an Oscar for her supporting role in Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Melissa Leo as Ray Eddy in "Frozen River"

Melissa Leo plays Ray Eddy, an impoverished mother who becomes involved in a smuggling ring in an attempt to avoid losing her home.

This Melissa Leo's first Academy Award Oscar Nomination.

Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz in "The Reader"

Kate Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a German woman in her thirties whose teenage lover is unaware of the dark secret in her past.

This is Kate Winslet's sixth Oscar nomination and the fourth in the Best Lead Actress Academy Award category. Her other leading role nominations were for Titanic (1997), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Little Children (2006).

Kate Winslet's supporting role nominations were for Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Iris (2001).