Dench and Broadbent are nominated for Iris

A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly up for best actor and actress at the the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the nominations for which were announced on Tuesday.

In the Bedroom's leading pair, Sissy Spacek and UK actor Tom Wilkinson, are also named in the main acting categories.

Both films have three nominations, including one for the best overall cast performance - reinforcing the expectations that both movies could be battling it out at the Oscars in March.

Spacek has a second nomination - for TV movie Midwives - while Dame Judi Dench also has two nominations.

Dame Judi is up for the best actress award for her role in Iris, and for best supporting actress in The Shipping News.

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Bridget Jones' Diary star Renee Zellweger and Monster's Ball's Halle Berry will challenge Dame Judi, Spacek and Connelly in the best actress category.

In the best actor category, Kevin Kline, Sean Penn and Denzel Washington will all be hoping to steal the thunder from Crowe and Wilkinson.

Jim Broadbent, Dame Judi's co-star in Iris, is nominated for best supporting actor.

Moulin Rouge - seen by some as a frontrunner for Oscars glory - has just one nomination, for the best overall cast performance.

Lord of the Rings has two - Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf, is up for the best supporting actor award, while the whole ensemble is also named in the cast category.

Russell Crowe won a Golden Globe in January

Gosford Park, which features a mainly UK cast, rounds off the cast category, while star Helen Mirren has an individual nomination for best supporting actress.

Another UK actor, Ben Kingsley, continues to win acclaim and is up for two awards.

He is on the best supporting actor list for his portrayal as a hardened criminal in Sexy Beast, while his role as Anne Frank's father in a TV movie earns him a nomination in the television section.

In the other television categories, The West Wing and The Sopranos look set to continue their dominance of the drama genre, with four nominations each.

Of the TV comedies, Everybody Loves Raymond has four nods, just ahead of Will and Grace, Sex and the City and Frasier, which have three each.

The nominees for the SAG Awards were announced by In the Bedroom actress Marisa Tomei and Cheers star Ted Danson.

They are the eighth annual awards run by the Screen Actors Guilds and lay claim to being the only awards to be based on the opinion of the acting profession's peers.

The nominations were chosen by two randomly selected panels of 4,200 actors, while the shortlists will now be voted on by the SAG's full membership of 98,000.

The SAG's 38th Annual Life Achievement Award will be presented to Edward Asner, best known as TV's Lou Grant, during the ceremony on 10 March at the Shrine Exposition Center in LA.