  Given two Banach spaces $X$ and $Y$, we introduce and study a concept of
norm-attainment in the space of nuclear operators $\mathcal{N}(X,Y)$ and in the
projective tensor product space $X \widehat{\otimes}_\pi Y$. We exhibit
positive and negative examples where both previous norm-attainment hold. We
also study the problem of whether the class of elements which attain their
norms in $\mathcal{N}(X,Y)$ and in $X\widehat{\otimes}_\pi Y$ is dense or not.
We prove that, for both concepts, the density of norm-attaining elements holds
for a large class of Banach spaces $X$ and $Y$ which, in particular, covers all
classical Banach spaces. Nevertheless, we present Banach spaces $X$ and $Y$
failing the approximation property in such a way that the class of elements in
$X\widehat{\otimes}_\pi Y$ which attain their projective norms is not dense. We
also discuss some relations and applications of our work to the classical
theory of norm-attaining operators throughout the paper.
