The King's Speech leads Bafta field

The King's Speech is leading the way in the nominations for this year's Baftas with 14 nods, followed by ballet thriller Black Swan, with 12.

Tom Hooper's film about King George VI is up for best film and director while Colin Firth is up for best actor.

Facebook film The Social Network, named best film drama at Sunday's Golden Globes, received six nominations.

Pete Postlethwaite, who died of cancer a fortnight ago, is in the best supporting actor category for The Town.

Globes success

Christopher Nolan sci-fi epic Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, received nine nominations while Danny Boyle rock-climbing drama 127 Hours and the Coen brothers' western remake True Grit took eight each.

All go up against The King's Speech and Black Swan for best film.

The UK Film Council, which part-funded The King's Speech, said the movie - which remains at the top of the UK and Ireland box office after taking £4.4m over the weekend - was "a phenomenal British success story".

The council, which is to be axed by the government as part of spending cuts, said it was another "powerful example" of a "decade-long strategy of championing exciting film projects and investing in creative excellence".

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland picked up five nods while Made In Dagenham, about the 1968 Ford factory strike, received four as did The Kids Are All Right - the tale of a lesbian couple reunited with the biological father of their teenage children.

Last year's best actor Firth - fresh from his Golden Globe success - is pitted against The Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg and True Grit's Jeff Bridges.

Javier Bardem is also in the running for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful, as is James Franco, for 127 Hours.

Black Swan actress Natalie Portman goes up against True Grit's 14-year-old star Hailee Steinfeld, and Noomi Rapace, star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - adapted from Stieg Larsson's book of the same name - for best actress.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are also nominated for their roles in The Kids are All Right.

British star Andrew Garfield, who plays the lead role in the new Spider-Man movie due next year, is up for best supporting actor, for The Social Network.

Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter are both nominated in acting categories

He is nominated alongside Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right and Pete Postlethwaite.

Geoffrey Rush, who plays King George VI's speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech is also nominated as is Christian Bale for boxing biopic The Fighter.

Bale's co-star in The Fighter, Amy Adams, goes up against Helena Bonham Carter - for her performance as The Queen Mother in The King's Speech - Black Swan's Barbara Hershey, Made in Dagenham's Miranda Richardson and Another Year's Lesley Manville.

Bafta deputy chairman David Parfitt said: "It's a very good year for the Brits. Even some of the American films that are nominated have British directors.

"British film has always punched above its weight in the film world," he added.

This year's ceremony, at London's Royal Opera House on 13 February, will be hosted for a fifth year by Jonathan Ross.

Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker triumphed last year, scooping six awards including best film - and then repeated the feat at the Oscars.