Cold Mountain has emerged as the front runner for this year's Bafta awards, taking an impressive 13 nominations including best film and best director.

Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King is just behind with 12 nominations, while Girl With A Pearl Earring has ten, Lost In Translation and Master And Commander eight each, and Big Fish seven. The nominations were announced this morning at 9.00am in London.

Five films have made it into the best film category - Big Fish, Cold Mountain, The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, Lost In Translation and Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.

Big Fish, which has not yet been released in British cinemas is perhaps the most surprising entry on this shortlist, taking its place at the expense of highly fancied awards' contenders such as Mystic River and Seabiscuit. Tellingly Big Fish was one of the few screener tapes to be sent out to BAFTA voters this year.

Six films were nominated for the Film Not In The English Language Category: The Barbarian Invasions, Belleville Rendez-Vous, Etre Et Avoir, Good Bye Lenin!, In This World and Spirited Away.

Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn have both received multiple acting nominations. Johansson received two nods in the best actress category for Girl With A Pearl Earring and Lost In Translation, while Penn was nominated in the best actor category for his roles in 21 Grams and Mystic River.

Other surprises included Nicole Kidman, last year's Bafta and Oscar best actress winner for The Hours, being overlooked in the best actress category for Cold Mountain.

British box office hit Calendar Girls was also completely overlooked, not even receiving a nomination in the British Film Of The Year category. Cold Mountain, Girl With A Pearl Earring, In This World, Love Actually and Touching The Void were the five nominees in this category.

Full list of nominees to follow shortly.