BAFTA nominees announced

The buzz from Sunday’s Golden Globes has barely subsided to a simmer, and already we’ve got the next awards ceremony to think about.

Except this one’s the BAFTAs, obviously held on British shores. Which could mean one of two things. Either those who felt wronged by the prizes handed out Stateside will have their tempers appeased. Or, well, not.

So who’s made the cut?

Well, as expected, Avatar and James Cameron are again up for Best Film and Best Director, as well as receiving six other nominations (including, naturally, Best Visual Effects).

And, again, they’ll be duking it out against The Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow.

Except the nomination of Neill Blomkamp as Best Director for District 9 means that Cameron has another sci-fi director to contend with. Is this the year of sci-fi? It could just be.

And if ever we needed a reason to be proud to be British, just take a look at the Outstanding British Film category. All five nominees there – including our favs An Education , In the Loop and Fish Tank - just go to show what great material we’ve produced this side of the pond in the past 12 months.

But that’s enough of our blather. Here’s the full rundown of the nominations...

Best Film
Avatar
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Precious
Up In The Air

Leading actor
Jeff Bridges ( Crazy Heart )
George Clooney ( Up In The Air )
Colin Firth ( A Single Man )
Jeremy Renner ( The Hurt Locker )
Andy Serkis ( Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll )

Leading actress
Carey Mulligan ( An Education )
Saoirse Ronan ( The Lovely Bones )
Gabourey Sidibe ( Precious )
Meryl Streep ( Julie & Julia )
Audrey Tautou ( Coco Before Chanel )

Supporting actor
Alec Baldwin ( It's Complicated )
Christian McKay ( Me And Orson Welles )
Alfred Molina ( An Education )
Stanley Tucci ( The Lovely Bones )
Christoph Waltz ( Inglourious Basterds )

Supporting actress
Anne-Marie Duff ( Nowhere Boy )
Vera Farmiga ( Up In The Air )
Anna Kendrick ( Up In The Air )
Mo'Nique ( Precious )
Kristin Scott Thomas ( Nowhere Boy )

Outstanding British film
An Education
Fish Tank
In The Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson (directors, producers - Mugabe And The White African )
Eran Creevy (writer/director - Shifty )
Stuart Hazeldine (writer/director - Exam )
Duncan Jones (director - Moon )
Sam Taylor-Wood (director - Nowhere Boy )

Director
James Cameron ( Avatar )
Neill Blomkamp ( District 9 )
Lone Scherfig ( An Education )
Kathryn Bigelow ( The Hurt Locker )
Quentin Tarantino ( Inglourious Basterds )

Original screenplay
The Hangover (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
Up (Bob Peterson, Pete Docter)

Adapted screenplay
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell)
An Education (Nick Hornby)
In The Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche)
Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
Up In The Air (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)

Film not in the English language
Broken Embraces
Coco Before Chanel
Let The Right One In
A Prophet
The White Ribbon

Animated film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
Up

Music
Avatar (James Horner)
Crazy Heart (T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Chaz Jankel)
Up (Michael Giacchino)

Cinematography
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Road

Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Up In the Air

Production design
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Inglourious Basterds

Costume design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
A Single Man
The Young Victoria

Sound
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek
Up

Special visual effects
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek

Make-up & hair
Coco Before Chanel
An Education
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Short animation
The Gruffalo
The Happy Duckling
Mother Of Many

Short film
14
I Do Air
Jade
Mixtape
Off Season

The Orange Rising Star Award
Jesse Eisenberg
Nicholas Hoult
Carey Mulligan
Tahar Rahim
Kristen Stewart

So... There aren’t too many giant surprises in here.

The central quartet of Avatar , Hurt Locker , Precious and An Education are all well represented across the board.

But where An Education got absolutely zip stateside, we imagine Carey Mulligan and co will fare better over here. If Mulligan doesn’t get the Rising Star Award, we’ll go two rounds with a wookie.

We’re also pleased to see Christian McKay’s nod for Me and Orson Welles , which is definitely deserved, and Colin Firth’s staggering performance in A Single Man could just see him take home his first ever BAFTA.

Who will emerge victorious? Tune in on 21 February to find out.

Agree with the nominations? Anybody missing? (No 500 Days of Summer this time...) Give us a shout down there...