New European stars face off against Hollywood screen legends in the best actor race for the Academy Awards this year.

At time of going to press, Tom Hanks had been named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle for Cast Away, while Michael Douglas was given the same nod by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Wonder Boys.

But Javier Bardem, a big name in his home market of Spain, weighed in with a Best Actor nod from the National Board Of Review for Before Night Falls. Ireland's Colin Farrell was surprise winner of the Best Actor prize from the Boston Society Of Film Critics for Tigerland.

Bardem gives perhaps the year's most accomplished performance as Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls, Julian Schnabel's lyrical biopic of the Cuban poet who was targeted by the communist regime for both his literary prowess and his homosexuality. Bardem never over-plays Arenas. He brings humour, flirtatiousness and warmth to his extraordinary courage in the face of oppression, betrayal, torture and finally AIDS. The performance gives the film its verve.

But Bardem is unlikely to win the popular vote from members of the Academy in the face of such grand performances from Hanks, Douglas and Sean Connery. Hanks is monumental in Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away, rarely off the screen as the time-obsessed Fed-Ex man stranded on a deserted island. Winner of two back-to-back Oscars in 1993 and 1994, Hanks has never been so compelling. He is almost a shoo-in for another nomination, his fifth. Nor would it be undeserving if he won, although the loss of weight he endured for the shoot will undoubtedly endear him to the Academy voters who favour physically challenging parts over the non-showy bravura of, say, Bardem's work in Before Night Falls.

Douglas is another star who changed his look and style for Wonder Boys working wonders as the college professor suffering severe writer's block midway through his second novel. Scruffy, despondent and emotionally screwed-up, the character is one of the actor's most memorable creations, as far removed from Gordon Gecko as can be imagined. As an actor, Douglas has only one Oscar nomination - for playing Gekko in Wall Street. He of course won in 1987.

Connery is another superstar with only one nomination - and one win - for The Untouchables, also ironically in 1987. But this year, also playing a writer in Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester, he stands a good chance of another. Connery has never played such a subdued or insecure character as Forrester's agoraphobic novelist. As his character uses his wisdom helps a young writer steer through hurdles at school - and grudgingly re-evaluates his own life as a result of their relationship - he reveals depths rarely glimpsed in movies like The Rock or The Hunt For Red October.

Russell Crowe, often compared to Connery in his action hero youth, pulled off the rare feat of earning raves for playing an action hero - the all-man Maximus in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. The versatile Australian displayed star-making magnetism in the role of the Roman general reduced to a gladiator when emperor Commodus takes power.

Another Aussie, previous Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, also stepped into history this year, playing the Marquis de Sade in Quills. Rush gave a bravura turn as the incarcerated writer, all spitting venom and shameless lust.

Irish newcomer Colin Farrell was already the talk of the town before Joel Schumacher's Vietnam War drama Tigerland opened in October. But, once the film was out, he secured lead roles in two major studio movies - Tollbooth, under Schumacher again, and Gregory Hoblit's Hart's War, where he plays opposite Bruce Willis. In Tigerland, he exudes star presence as Roland Bozz, a roughneck Texan trying to get discharged in the last weeks of his basic training before going to war.

And from the UK, 14 year-old Jamie Bell played Billy Elliot to perfection. So omnipresent is Bell that he is being pushed for consideration in the Best Actor category, unlike many child actors before him. Playing the youngster turned ballerina, he offered a tender and complicated performance reflecting the insecurities, determinations and sensitivities of a child.

Denzel Washington was a favourite to win last year for The Hurricane. He stands another outside chance this year for Remember The Titans, giving an effortlessly powerful performance as a football coach trying to bring his half-white, half-black team to play together in 1971 Virginia. Although not exactly revered by critics, the film - directed by Boaz Yakin and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer - was a huge box office hit and Washington carried it.

As for Ed Harris in Pollock, his performance was the least of it. Harris also produced and directed the movie, in which he played the troubled alcoholic artist Jackson Pollock from 1941 to his death in 1956. Harris, who himself became a painter while developing the film, is commanding as Pollock, whether in the exhilaration of painting or the depths of despair. It could see him winning a Best Actor nomination for the first time - he was previously nominated for supporting roles in Apollo XIII (1995) and The Truman Show (1998).

Perhaps the least likely to gain major award recognition are the stars of smaller independent movies who failed to gain the exposure a Connery or Hanks can muster from their studio movies. Was there a better performance this year than Dan Futterman's wrenching turn as a gay man mourning the death of his lover in Jon Shear's Urbania' What about Ned Beatty and Liv Schreiber, both so natural and moving in Tom Gilroy's Spring Forward' Or Billy Crudup, excellent as a man haunted by his late wife in Keith Gordon's Waking The Dead, or racked by addictions in Allison Maclean's Jesus' Son' These are the performances which, while unlikely to figure on many voters' ballots, will be treasured nonetheless.

The supporting actor category has an even richer vein of contenders this year. So far, Joaquin Phoenix, Benicio Del Toro and Willem Dafoe have been recognised by critics' bodies. But there are a whole host of other actors in the running, from Brit Albert Finney talking American in Erin Brockovich to Brad Pitt talking Irish in Snatch. There are newcomers such as Rob Brown and Patrick Fugit, and veterans like William H Macy and Gary Oldman.

In awards terms, Del Toro has taken the lead for his smouldering performance in the ensemble cast of Traffic. Playing a macho Tijuana cop facing up to his conscience over drug smuggling and corruption in his own government, the actor gave the best and least mannered performance of his career so far. He was named Best Supporting Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle and runner-up to Dafoe by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Dafoe, who hasn't been nominated for an Oscar since Platoon in 1986, got the LA nod for his virtuoso turn in Shadow Of The Vampire. He plays the actor Max Schreck, performing as the undead count in FW Murnau's classic 1922 horror movie Nosferatu - Eine Symphonie Des Grauens. The relish with which he plays Schreck, here imagined as a real vampire, is a delight to watch.

Similarly scene-stealing is Pitt, playing an Irish gypsy in Guy Ritchie's Snatch. Barely comprehensible, grubbily dressed and surprisingly plausible, the star known for his sex appeal embraces the sort of anti-leading man