The Shape of Water, a romantic fable about a janitor who falls in love with a sea creature, has won 13 Oscar nominations, leading a field of films with an unexpectedly strong British showing.

Guillermo del Toro’s cold war-era fantasy was nominated for best picture, best director and best actress for Sally Hawkins, who plays the mute cleaner, as well as in 10 other categories, part of a bumper haul on Tuesday just one nomination shy of the record for the most in Academy Awards history.

Christopher Nolan’s second world war epic Dunkirk followed with eight nominations, including best picture and director. Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri got seven, including best picture and best actress for Frances McDormand, who plays a mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the results, based on the votes of 8,400 members, in an elaborate ceremony in Los Angeles which set the stage for the 90th Academy Awards’ full red carpet pomp on 4 March.

Nine films were nominated for best picture, with Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, Darkest Hour, Get Out, Phantom Thread and The Post completing the list.

Gary Oldman was nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, confirming his status as frontrunner. He will face competition from his fellow Brit Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays a dressmaker in Phantom Thread, a drama set in London’s 1950s couture world written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Daniel Kaluuya, another Brit, was nominated for his turn in Get Out, a horror-satire about race in America.

They will vie for a statuette against Timothée Chalamet, who stars in the gay coming of age story Call Me By Your Name, and Denzel Washington, who was praised for his performance in the otherwise largely unloved legal drama Roman J Israel, Esq.

James Franco had been tipped for a nomination after picking up a Golden Globe for his performance in The Disaster Artist but was locked out, prompting debate over whether it was due to allegations of sexual misconduct, which flared just before voting closed, or the Academy’s coolness towards comedies.

The #MeToo movement of feminist activism against sexual misconduct in Hollywood will colour this year’s Oscars, as it did the Globes and other awards. The producer Harvey Weinstein used to dominate Oscar campaigning but the Academy expelled him last October amid allegations of serial predatory behaviour, including rape.

Award contenders have pitched their films as riding current cultural waves. Three Billboards: a woman confronting male authority to exact justice for a raped, murdered daughter. The Post: a newspaper publisher played by Meryl Streep – who bagged her 21st Oscar nomination – defending press freedom against an abusive president.

“Hollywood has turned over the Oscars to the independent world with its myriad social issues,” said Richard Rushfield, who publishes a trade newsletter, The Ankler. “It’s much more attuned to the issues of the moment. Whether that speaks to mass audiences worldwide or to a highly sensitive cultural niche is another question.”

Lady Bird, about a mother-daughter relationship, has benefitted from its female focus, bagging nominations for its stars Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf and director Greta Gerwig, said Sasha Stone, who runs the site Awards Daily. “The mood is pushing Lady Bird higher than it normally would.”

Gerwig said in a statement: “This is an unbelievable honor and I am beside myself with joy and gratitude. I couldn’t be prouder of my brilliant women who led the cast.”

Stone attributed the unexpectedly strong showing of Darkest Hour, with seven nominations, and other results to the Academy’s British voting bloc, who also are Bafta members. “They’re very influential – they are a strong and powerful group.”

After the #OscarsSoWhite controversies of 2015 and 2016 the Academy accelerated recruitment of younger, more diverse members. It remains 72% male and 87% white but will probably avoid controversy this time. Jordan Peele was nominated for directing Get Out and the race drama Mudbound was nominated in the cinematography, adapted screenplay and original song categories. It missed bigger categories but analysts attributed that to Oscar voters’ sniffiness about the film’s television-focused distributor, Netflix.

The Shape of Water leads the pack but Three Billboards has momentum after sweeping the Globes and other awards.

However, McDonagh, its British writer-director, missed out on a directing nomination, which could impede its chances of taking best picture.

“I’m thrilled that our film has received seven nominations from the Academy, and that the beautiful work of our editor Jon Gregory, our composer Carter Burwell, my gentle brothers-in-arms Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, and our fearless leader Frances McDormand, have all been recognised so wonderfully,” McDonagh said in a statement.