This year's movie awards season takes another step towards its climax with the announcement of the Academy Award nominations on Tuesday.

The field this year is wide open with no overall favourite for best picture, unlike recent years when the likes of Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic, and The English Patient were backed heavily.

The eclectic list of contenders for the 26 March ceremony includes films about death row, a dysfunctional family, chatty ghosts, a tobacco industry whistleblower and light opera kings Gilbert and Sullivan.

American Beauty is a good bet - British theatre director Sam Mendes' critically acclaimed big screen debut stars Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, and it won the best dramatic picture Golden Globe earlier this month. It was also named best film by the US National Board of Review.

Topsy-Turvy awards

But America's National Society of Film Critics were split and awarded their best film prize to Mike Leigh's Gilbert & Sullivan movie Topsy-Turvy and the oddball Being John Malkovich.

The New York Film Critics' Ciricle were more united, plumping for Topsy-Turvy and naming Briton Mike Leigh as best director.

Across the country, the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association chose The Insider, a film about whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.

Other best film possibilities include The Hurricane, about a boxer wrongly convicted of murder, and The Talented Mr Ripley with Matt Damon as a murderous high-society wannabe.

The Green Mile, starring Academy Awards darling Tom Hanks, cannot be discounted either. Adapted from Stephen King's Death Row novel, it is about an inmate with supernatural powers.

Even if it does not win best picture, Michael Clarke Duncan is a hot tip for an acting honour.

'Unpredictable stories'

Another ghostly Hollywood film, blockbuster The Sixth Sense, picked up top honours at America's 26th annual People's Choice Awards.

It is unlikely to be nominated for best film, but could still figure in the best supporting actor category with child star Haley Joel Osment. M Night Shyamalan's screenplay could get recognition too.

Boys Don't Cry, with Golden Globe winner Hilary Swank in a gender-bending role, and The Cider House Rules, based on John Irving's orphanage novel and starring Michael Caine, may also feature.

Three Golden Globe winners feature in the list of outside bets for best film. Jim Carrey as comic Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, Tom Cruise is a seedy TV guru in Magnolia, while British actress Janet McTeer carries Tumbleweeds.

Oscars scoop?

However, impatient movie buffs are being offered a preview of possible Oscar contenders on an allegedly leaked list published on the internet.

The Academy of Film and Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is adamant the list - on Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News site - is a fake.

But Knowles' site is well known for its Hollywood scoops. He says the list has been leaked by an "internal source".

It claims to show the eight films being shortlisted in each category - before they were whittled down to the five which will be announced in a dawn ceremony in Hollywood - at just after 1330 GMT.