The King's Speech Leads BAFTA Nominations

The King's Speech is the frontrunner in this years BAFTAS, with no less than 14 nominations.

Tom Hooper's film about King George VI is nominated in the Best Film category, while it's star Colin Firth - who won a Best Actor award at the Golden Globes at the weekend - is nominated for Best Actor.

The King's Speech will compete against Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller Black Swan, Christopher Nolan's sci-fi movie Inception, The Social Network, David Fincher's drama about the creation of the Facebook website, and the Coen Brothers' western remake True Grit for Best Film.

It will also compete against Danny Boyle's real-life rock-climbing adventure 127 Hours, Mike Leigh's drama Another Year, Nigel Cole's bittersweet comedy Made In Dagenham and Chris Morris' controversial suicide bomber satire Four Lions in the race for Outstanding British Film.

Firth, meanwhile, will compete against The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg and True Grit's Jeff Bridges for the Best Actor award, as well as Javier Bardem and James Franco, nominated for their roles in Alejandro Gonzalez's Biutiful and 127 Hours, respectively.

Other films scoring a large number of nominations included Inception, which received nine and True Grit and 127 Hours, which both received eight.

The Social Network, which won the Golden Globe for Best Film (Drama), received six nominations, while Tom Burton's lavish adaptation of Alice in Wonderland collected five nominations and Made In Dagenham - a film about the 1968 Ford factory strike - received four, as did The Kids Are All Right, a film about a lesbian couple who are reunited with their biological father of their teenage children.

Natalie Portman, who won a Best Actress Golden Globe for her role as a tortured ballerina in Black Swan, leads the nominations in the Best Actress category, alongside True Grit's 14-year-old star Hailee Steinfield, Noomi Rapace, the star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Another Golden Globe recipient, Annette Bening is also nominated in this category, alongside her Kids Are All Right co-star Julianne Moore.

The late Pete Postlethwaite is nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role in The Town.

Other nominees included the new Spiderman, Andrew Garfield for his role in The Social Network, Mark Ruffalo from The Kids Are All Right, Geoffrey Rush from The King's Speech and Christian Bale, who has already won the Golden Globe in this category for his role in boxing drama The Fighter.

Bale's co-star Amy Adams will compete in the the Best Supporting Actress category alongside Helena Bonham-Carter for The King's Speech, Barbara Hersey for Black Swan, Miranda Richardson for Made in Dagenham and Lesley Manville for Another Year.

Andrew Garfield also leads the nominations for the Orange Wednesdays Rising Star award - the only award which is voted for by the public. Other nominees include Gemma Arterton, Tom Hardy, Aaron Johnson and Emma Stone.

The ceremony will be held at London's Royal Opera House on February 13 and will be hosted by Jonathan Ross.

(KMcA/BMcC)