It's that time of year again, so this year's nominations for the Orange British Academy Film Awards have duly been announced in London this morning. As expected, The King's Speech leads the way with a whopping 14 nominations, followed by Black Swan with 12. Inception takes nine nods and 127 Hours and True Grit (so cruelly overlooked by the Globes) each got 8.
After that, The Social Network took six nods and Alice in Wonderland five (it's OK, they're in the technical categories). The good news is that Four Lions gets two nods, for Best British Film and for Chris Morris in the Outstanding Debut by A British Writer, Director or Producer category, which is extremely well deserved for such a risky prospect.
**The Kids Are All Right **and Made in Dagenham get some love with four nominations each, just followed by the three taken by Toy Story 3, The Fighter and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
No great surprises in the Best Film or Best Director categories, except perhaps that Danny Boyle sneaks into the latter, displacing the Coens from a Directing nod to match their Best Film nomination.
In the Acting categories, it's very much as we've seen elsewhere, with a few welcome changes. For a start, Hailee Steinfeld properly gets nominated as a leading actress for her True Grit turn, rather than in Support, and Noomi Rapace gets some love for her extraordinary turn in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. That is, in other words, a genuinely strong category this year, although it's a brave man who'd bet against Natalie Portman for Black Swan. In the Supporting Actress category, meanwhile, Lesley Manville's wonderful performance in Another Year finally gets the acknowledgement it deserves after being inexplicably overlooked Stateside.
Among the men, the late, great Pete Postlethwaite is nominated in the Supporting Actor category for his turn in The Town, but that's otherwise same old, same old. And Blighty will be quivering as Colin Firth gets some more competition in the lead Actor category from Jeff Bridges, his Oscar nemesis last year. He's also joined by James Franco, Jesse Eisenberg and Javier Bardem for 127 Hours, The Social Network and Biutiful respectively.
The Animated category holds few surprises, either, since Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon are both in there. The third spot goes to newcomer Illumination with Despicable Me, but that's likeable enough to earn its spot.
This year's British Academy Film Awards will be held on Sunday February 13 at the Royal Opera House in London - and as ever, Empire will be there to cover the entire event and bring you all the news that's fit to print.
In the meantime, peruse the full list below and get your thinking caps on: who'll win? Who's the wild card? And who shouldn't even bother dry-cleaning their tux?
The nominees in full:
BEST FILM
BLACK SWAN
INCEPTION
THE KING’S SPEECH
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TRUE GRIT
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
127 HOURS
ANOTHER YEAR
FOUR LIONS
THE KING’S SPEECH
MADE IN DAGENHAM
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
THE ARBOR Clio Barnard (Director), Tracy O’Riordan (Producer)
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Banksy (Director), Jaimie D’Cruz (Producer)
FOUR LIONS Chris Morris (Director/Writer)
MONSTERS Gareth Edwards (Director/Writer)
SKELETONS Nick Whitfield (Director/Writer)
DIRECTOR
127 HOURS Danny Boyle
BLACK SWAN Darren Aronofsky
INCEPTION Christopher Nolan
THE KING’S SPEECH Tom Hooper
THE SOCIAL NETWORK David Fincher
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BLACK SWAN Mark Heyman, Andrés Heinz, John McLaughlin
THE FIGHTER Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson
INCEPTION Christopher Nolan
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
THE KING’S SPEECH David Seidler
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Aaron Sorkin
TOY STORY 3 Michael Arndt
TRUE GRIT Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
**
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE **
BIUTIFUL Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik, Fernando Bovaira
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Søren Stærmose, Niels Arden Oplev
I AM LOVE Luca Guadagnino, Francesco Melzi D’Eril, Marco Morabito, Massimiliano Violante
OF GODS AND MEN Xavier Beauvois
THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES Mariela Besuievsky, Juan José Campanella
ANIMATED FILM
DESPICABLE ME Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
TOY STORY 3 Lee Unkrich
LEADING ACTOR
JAVIER BARDEM Biutiful
JEFF BRIDGES True Grit
JESSE EISENBERG The Social Network
COLIN FIRTH The King’s Speech
JAMES FRANCO 127 Hours
**
LEADING ACTRESS**
ANNETTE BENING The Kids Are All Right
JULIANNE MOORE The Kids Are All Right
NATALIE PORTMAN Black Swan
NOOMI RAPACE The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
HAILEE STEINFELD True Grit
**
SUPPORTING ACTOR**
CHRISTIAN BALE The Fighter
ANDREW GARFIELD The Social Network
PETE POSTLETHWAITE The Town
MARK RUFFALO The Kids Are All Right
GEOFFREY RUSH The King’s Speech
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
AMY ADAMS The Fighter
HELENA BONHAM CARTER The King’s Speech
BARBARA HERSHEY Black Swan
LESLEY MANVILLE Another Year
MIRANDA RICHARDSON Made in Dagenham
**
ORIGINAL MUSIC**
127 HOURS AR Rahman
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Danny Elfman
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON John Powell
INCEPTION Hans Zimmer
THE KING’S SPEECH Alexandre Desplat
**
CINEMATOGRAPHY**
127 HOURS Anthony Dod Mantle, Enrique Chediak
BLACK SWAN Matthew Libatique
INCEPTION Wally Pfister
THE KING’S SPEECH Danny Cohen
TRUE GRIT Roger Deakins
**EDITING **
127 HOURS Jon Harris
BLACK SWAN Andrew Weisblum
INCEPTION Lee Smith
THE KING’S SPEECH Tariq Anwar
THE SOCIAL NETWORK Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter
**
PRODUCTION DESIGN**
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
BLACK SWAN Thérèse DePrez, Tora Peterson
INCEPTION Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Doug Mowat
THE KING’S SPEECH Eve Stewart, Judy Farr
TRUE GRIT Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh
COSTUME DESIGN
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Colleen Atwood
BLACK SWAN Amy Westcott
THE KING’S SPEECH Jenny Beavan
MADE IN DAGENHAM Louise Stjernsward
TRUE GRIT Mary Zophres
SOUND
127 HOURS Glenn Freemantle, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Steven C Laneri, Douglas Cameron
BLACK SWAN Ken Ishii, Craig Henighan, Dominick Tavella
INCEPTION Richard King, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A Rizzo, Ed Novick
THE KING’S SPEECH John Midgley, Lee Walpole, Paul Hamblin
TRUE GRIT Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, Peter F Kurland, Douglas Axtell
**
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS**
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Nominees TBC
BLACK SWAN Dan Schrecker
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 Tim Burke, John Richardson, Nicolas Ait'Hadi, Christian Manz
INCEPTION Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Peter Bebb
TOY STORY 3 Nominees TBC
**
MAKE UP & HAIR**
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Nominees TBC
BLACK SWAN Judy Chin, Geordie Sheffer
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin
THE KING’S SPEECH Frances Hannon
MADE IN DAGENHAM Lizzie Yianni Georgiou
**SHORT ANIMATION **
THE EAGLEMAN STAG Michael Please
MATTER FISHER David Prosser
THURSDAY Matthias Hoegg
**
SHORT FILM**
CONNECT Samuel Abrahams, Beau Gordon
LIN Piers Thompson, Simon Hessel
RITE Michael Pearce, Ross McKenzie
TURNING Karni Arieli, Saul Freed, Alison Sterling, Kat Armour-Brown
UNTIL THE RIVER RUNS RED Paul Wright, Poss Kondeatis
THE ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING STAR AWARD
(voted for by the public)
GEMMA ARTERTON
ANDREW GARFIELD
TOM HARDY
AARON JOHNSON
EMMA STONE