The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that "walks the fine line between masterpiece and folly", is leading the nominations at this year's annual Bafta Awards.
Although it will have been out for a year by the time the awards are presented, Wes Anderson's cult hit has racked up a total of 11 nominations including a best film and a best actor nod for Ralph Fiennes.
The Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything is up for an almost equally impressive ten nominations including best film, best actor and best actress.
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It is a film that is expected to dominate the awards season, alongside the WWII code-breaking thriller The Imitation Game which received nine nominations.
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw predicts the former will come out on top as The Theory of Everything is "more complex, subtle and unexpected than you would guess from the poster and the trailer".
Birdman, a film that is "everything you want movies to be: vital, challenging, intellectually alive, visually stunning, emotionally affecting", is also nominated for ten awards.
However, there were some surprises, with best actor nominee Jake Gyllenhaal (nominated for Nightcrawler) "perhaps filling a spot many had assumed reserved for David Oyelowo", the British actor who plays Martin Luther King in the film Selma, writes The Guardian's Ben Beaumont-Thomas.
Another disappointment is the lack of recognition for Mr Turner, Mike Leigh’s biopic of the British artist, which was predicted to do much better by British critics.
Mr Turner is "a rambling, richly detailed character study with a magnificent central performance from Timothy Spall", says Geoffrey MacNab in The Independent.
The nominees in the main four categories:
Best Film:
- Birdman
- Boyhood
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- The Theory of Everything
Outstanding British Film:
- '71
- The Imitation Game
- Paddington
- Pride
- The Theory of Everything
- Under The Skin
Best actor:
- Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game)
- Ralph Fiennes (Grand Budapest Hotel)
- Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
- Michael Keaton (Birdman)
- Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
Best actress
- Amy Adams (Big Eyes)
- Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything)
- Julianne Moore (Still Alice)
- Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
- Reese Witherspoon (Wild)
The awards ceremony, hosted by Stephen Fry, will take place in London on Sunday 8 February.
