British stars up for Oscars

British stars Colin Firth, Helen Mirren and Carey Mulligan have been nominated for best actor and best actress Oscars.

Firth is up for his first Oscar for his role as a gay academic mourning the death of his partner in fashion designer Tom Ford's debut feature film A Single Man.

Newcomer Carey Mulligan, 24, is up for best actress for her role in An Education, based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber.

Previous Academy Award winner Dame Helen gets a go at a second Oscar for her performance as writer Leo Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station.

An Education is nominated for best picture, alongside films including Avatar, The Hurt Locker, District 9, Precious, and Up In The Air.

Avatar director James Cameron is pitted against his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, whose film The Hurt Locker has won critical acclaim, in the directing category.

Made for a fraction of the budget of Avatar, The Hurt Locker, a tense movie about an elite bomb disposal team, has won widespread critical acclaim and triumphed at the Directors Guild of America awards.

Cameron and Bigelow were both shortlisted for best director in the Golden Globes, with Cameron taking the prize.

An Education and In The Loop – the movie spin-off of the BBC's hit political comedy The Thick of It – will battle it out in the adapted screenplay section.

Avatar and The Hurt Locker are leading the nominations with nine apiece.

Avatar recently surpassed Cameron's multiple Oscar-winning Titanic – and saw the director beat his own record when the film became the highest grossing movie yet.

For the first time the Oscar nominations feature 10 best-picture contenders instead of the usual five.

British hopefuls for lead actress compete with Golden Globe winner Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, who is being tipped as favourite to land the Oscar.

Meryl Streep for her performance in Julie and Julia and Gabourey Sidibe for Precious, the film in which she made her acting debut, are also nominated.

Firth is up against Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), Morgan Freeman (Invictus) and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker).

The nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards were announced by Hollywood star Anne Hathaway in Los Angeles.

Matt Damon (Invictus), Woody Harrelson (The Messenger), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) are up for best supporting actor.

Penelope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) and Mo'Nique (Precious) are the contenders for supporting actress.

British heartthrob Firth, 49, who recently had a singing role in Mamma Mia!, said of his nomination: "I thought I was managing my expectations, but on hearing the news I discovered new and unfamiliar vocal tones. Perhaps I should do another musical."

An Education was brought to the big screen by British writer Nick Hornby, who is named in the adapted screenplay category.

Hornby is well known for a string of books which made it into the movies, including Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About A Boy.

Writers Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche are all nominated in the adapted screenplay category for In The Loop.

Another British hopeful is Nick Park, for Wallace and Gromit caper A Matter Of Loaf And Death.

Park is nominated in the short film (animated) category.

William Hill is tipping Avatar to be the big winner at the Oscars, offering odds of 1/2 that it wins best film.

While Cameron is favourite to win the best director Oscar at 4/6, his ex Bigelow is hot on his heels at 5/4.