Associated Press

George Clooney and Stacy Keibler arrive for the 84th Academy Awards at the Hollywood and Highland Centre in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles - Hollywood's biggest fashion parade, the red carpet outside the Oscars, began heating up on Sunday afternoon ahead of the world's top film awards where silent movie The Artist is widely seen as the choice for best movie.

Early arrivals included Artist actress Berenice Bejo, who is nominated in a supporting role, in a mint green dress, The Help star Jessica Chastain in a stunning black gown embroidered in gold and Descendants actress Shailene Woodley in white.

Fans who had waited all day lined the red carpet in stadium seats to cheer their favourite stars including George Clooney and his girlfriend, Stacy Keibler. Photographers snapped thousands of pictures and television cameras rolled.

Tim Gunn, co-host of popular fashion TV show Project Runway, called the Oscars' red carpet, “the runway to end all runways”.

But it is later in the evening that the action really begins when comedian Billy Crystal, who returns as Oscar host for the ninth time, takes the stage and the awards begin to flow.

This year, The Artist, a tale of old Hollywood that sees a fading star find redemption through the love of a woman just as silent movies are being taken over by talkies, is widely picked to take home best film by most industry pundits.

It comes into the night with 10 nominations, second only to Martin Scorsese's Hugo with 11. But most of the nods for Hugo are in technical categories like cinematography, whereas The Artist nominations are spread across several categories.

“It's unbeatable,” said Dave Karger, movie writer for Entertainment Weekly magazine.

While it faces keen competition from civil rights drama The Help, The Artist has come out on top in most award shows this year. Still, pundits point out that The Help did win best ensemble cast from the Screen Actors Guild, and actors make up the biggest group of Oscar voters.

The third movie that has had Hollywood buzzing this season is family drama The Descendants, starring George Clooney as a man trying to keep his family together after his cheating wife is hospitalised in a coma. But Descendants has failed to spark Oscar voters, and its key win is seen as adapted screenplay. - Reuters