King's Speech front-runner for Oscar glory

The movie — about King George VI’s struggle to overcome his stutter aided by an unorthodox therapist — is in the running for the top accolades, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for star Colin Firth and Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter.

Also picking up a string of nominations was the Coen Brothers’ western True Grit with 10 and David Fincher’s The Social Network with eight.

Both will face off against The King’s Speech for Best Picture along with seven other contenders — last year was the first since 1944 when the nominee list was extended from five.

The other hopefuls are Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3.

The Social Network, about the founding of Facebook, took the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards but The King’s Speech received Best Picture from the influential Producers Guild Of America, which has predicted the Oscar for the last three years.

The snubbing of Inception director Christopher Nolan from the Best Director list has outraged many fans, as it did when he was denied inclusion for The Dark Knight.

It also missed out in all of the acting categories, picking up nominations in the Original Screenplay and a slew of technical areas, including Sound, Cinematography and Visual Effects.

Sadly for fans, Inception is unlikely to take the Best Picture prize — if the Academy liked it that much they would have included Nolan in the director list.

Another strange exclusion is David Guggenheim’s Waiting For Superman — an acclaimed commentary about school system flaws — missing out in the documentary division.

Waste Land and Restrepo — both shown at the Bermuda Docs Film Festival — are among the contenders.

Neither The King’s Speech, True Grit nor The Social Network features in the Best Actress category, likely to go to Natalie Portman for her stellar turn as a tortured ballerina in Black Swan.

Supporting Actor and Actress will be a tough fight. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are a revelation in David O Russell’s The Fighter, a biopic of ‘Irish’ Mickey Ward, but Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are equally compelling in The King’s Speech.

Toy Story 3 — the highest-grossing film of 2010 worldwide — has very little chance of taking the top prize but should win Best Animation. It also has a shot at Original Song for Randy Newman’s We Belong Together.

The next two biggest movies at the box office — Alice In Wonderland and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part One — only received a few nods, the former for Art Direction, Costumes and Visual Effects.

Potter only managed inclusion in Art Direction and Visual Effects.

Finally, Best Foreign Film is likely to go to Mexico’s Biutiful, starring Best Actor nominee Javier Bardem, who won Best Supporting Actor for No Country For Old Men in 2007.

The 83rd Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 27, at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre.