On 10 February some of the movie industry's biggest stars will descend on London to attend the BAFTA awards, more American actors are expected to attend after they were robbed of in the camera time at the Golden Globes.Over the years our humble BAFTA event has become of the highlights on the awards circuit and has awarded actors and movies that have gone on to win at the Oscars.

Best Picture
- American Gangster

- Atonement

- The Lives of Others

- No Country for Old men

- There Will Be Blood

American Gangster

Despite doing well critically and commercially upon release, and being a damn fine piece of work, American Gangster, which re-unite Crowe with Washington and Crowe with Ridley Scott, has been largely over looked on the awards circuit.American Gangster is based on the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a Harlem crime lord of the 1970s.

He took on the mafia by selling uncut heroin direct from Vietnam , with a little help from the American armed forces, and selling it cheaper.

Cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) heads a drugs task force whole sole purpose is to clean up the streets of New York which have become over-run with drugs.

This is not your average cop and robber movie that concentrates on the gun fights and explicit violence as Scott focuses in the relationship between Roberts and Lucas.

And when you have these two Oscar winners face to face they provide some of the best scenes in the whole movie.

Despite not being recognised in many Best Picture categories there was success for Ruby Dee at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with a surprise Best Supporting Actress, she is also nominated in the same category at this year's Academy Awards.

Atonement

A nomination in this category for Atonement really was a foregone conclusion for this British movie.

A Golden Globe winner for Best Picture as well as an Oscar nominee Joe Wright's romance/war epic truly is one of the best films of the year.

It's 1935 and thirteen year old Briony Tallis, an aspiring writer with a wild imagination, is fascinated by the behaviour of the adults around her, despite not understanding what they are doing.

She witnesses two strange encounters between her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, a family friend and son of the cook.

She believes, after reading a letter from Robbie to Cecilia, that Robbie is a dangerous, sex crazed individual.

When she walks in on Robbie and Cecilia making love in the library, which she believes to be an attack on her sister, her suspicions about Robbie are confirmed.

Later that night their cousin Lola is raped in the grounds of their house and Briony accuses Robbie of the crime.

The three main character's lives pivot on this one event: Robbie is sent to prison before going to fight for his country in the Second World War, Cecilia leaves her family behind and becomes a nurse in blitz London, and Briony spends her whole life attempting to atone for her mistake.

It's hard to believe that this is only Joe Wright's second picture as he has now become the golden boy of Working Title.

Keira Knightley finally stakes a claim as a serious grown-up actress, shaking off her young girl roles.

James McAvoy follows up his excellent turn in The Last King of Scotland again highlighting the fast that he has become a great leading man.

It seems such a shame that both of these fine young actors have been overlooked in their individual categories at this year's Oscars.

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Other is a surprise inclusion for the Best Picture category after winning an Academy Award last year for best Foreign Language Film.

East Berlin, November 1984. Five years before its downfall, the former East-German government ensured its claim to power with a ruthless system of control and surveillance.

Party-loyalist Captain Gerd Wiesler hopes to boost his career when given the job of collecting evidence against the playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the celebrated theater actress Christa-Maria Sieland.

After all, the "operation" is backed by the highest political circles. What he didn't anticipate, however, was that submerging oneself into the world of the target also changes the surveillance agent.

The immersion in the lives of others--in love, literature, free thinking and speech--makes Wiesler acutely aware of the meagerness of his own existence and opens to him a completely new way of life which he has ever more trouble resisting.

But the system, once started, cannot be stopped. A dangerous game has begun.

No Country For Old Men

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen it's the duo's first film in nearly four years and is an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel.

Llewlyn Moss (Brolin), a down on his luck Vietnam veteran, stumbles across a drug deal that has gone violently wrong.

Discovering a suitcase full of cash Moss flees with the money unaware that merciless killer (Javier Bardem) is already on his trail.

Several steps behind is Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) who is concerned by the rising number of dead bodies.

No Country For Old Men is a bleak and gritty picture with Bardem delivering an exceptional performance as the most unnerving screen villain of 2007.

Having won Best Picture at the New York Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Washington D.C Area Film Critics Association and Boston Society of Film Critics No Country For Old Men.

They cemented the Oscar buzz after picking up Best Picture and Best Ensemble cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, making up for their Golden Globe disappointment.

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood, while still bagging nominations, is failing to win a Best Picture gong on the awards circuit.

Set over a twenty year period the Will Be Blood follows Daniel Plainview (Day Lewis), who rises from a lowly silver miner to become a successful oil baron.

Following a tip from a visitor named Paul Sunday, whose family sits atop a veritable ocean of oil, Plainview travels to the town of New Boston, California, with his young son.

Sunday’s preacher brother Eli (both roles are played by the excellent Paul Dano) grudgingly accepts Plainview’s ambitions under the condition that he help fund the town church.

As Plainview’s plans come to fruition, a series of events begin to fracture the insular world he has constructed for himself, pitting Plainview against Sunday and forcing him to become even more vindictive and ruthless.

Despite finding itself in the running for Best Picture at the Oscars the recognition for this film looks likely to go to British actor, and leading man, Daniel Day Lewis who has won just about every award nominated for including Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe.

Tip to win BAFTA's Best Picture - Atonement

Female First Helen Earnshaw