London, United Kingdom | AFP | Tuesday 1/7/2020 – 18:17 UTC+8

Nominations were unveiled for this year’s BAFTAs on Tuesday, with the dark comic book drama “Joker,” starring Golden Globes winner Joaquin Phoenix, leading the pack.

The original story of the Batman series villain secured 11 nominations for Britain’s showpiece film awards, including Best Film.

It is up against Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic “The Irishman” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood”, which both received 10 nominations each.

Sam Mendes’ “1917,” a tale about two British soldiers which earned the coveted best drama Golden Globe, received nine nominations, including in the best film category.

Last year’s golden mask statuette was scooped up by the Netflix black-and-white production “Roma”, which went on to win three Oscars but fell short in the best film category.

This year’s BAFTAs include all the Oscar favourites, including “Once Upon A Time” star Leonardo DiCaprio and Renee Zellweger, who portrays US singer and actress Judy Garland in the romance drama “Judy”.

The full list of leading actor nominations are DiCaprio, Adam Driver, Taron Egerton, Phoenix and Jonathan Pryce.

Jessie Buckley (“Wild Rose”), Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”), Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”), Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”) and Zellweger are up for leading actress.

The best director nominees are Sam Mendes for “1917”, Scorsese, Todd Phillips for “Joker”, Tarantino and South Korea’s Bong Joon-Ho for “Parasite”.

The six nominees for Outstanding British Film are “1917”, “Bait”, “For Sama”, “Rocketman”, “Sorry We Missed You”, and “The Two Popes”.

The award ceremony takes place on February 2.

zak/phz/wdb