Best Actor
1. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network [above]
For managing to reconcile a character who, in certain scenes, appears no more than a snivelling little shit with the idea that Mark Zuckerberg might just be (a, granted, far richer version of) Someone Like Us - and incidentally doing more for the wearing of dressing gowns at inappropriate hours of the day than perhaps any actor since Bridges in The Big Lebowski.
2. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Father of My Children
A towering demonstration of old-school screen charisma, offering an embodiment of wracked cinephilia while hinting at vast reserves of paternal compassion. And he's only in half the movie!
3. Andre Dussolier, Wild Grass
Easily the funniest performance of the year - funny ha-ha and funny-strange, a barometer for this description-defying movie itself.
4. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
Finally shucking off the "gormless idiot" tag that's stuck to him ever since he showed up in that Norman Wisdom-style flat cap in The Notebook - displaying flickers of real, cocky charm in the flashbacks, and making something human and tragic out of a generally useless husband in the present day scenes.
5. Edgar Ramirez, Carlos
Ramirez turns the Jackal into a movie star rehearsing for a variety of roles - bulking up or slimming down as required, forever striking the first pose that comes into his head. Unlike the generally sensational Mesrine movies, Carlos realises from the off that its hero might have been a bit of a himbo prat - the story lies in how he got away with it for so long.
Best British Actor
1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
He gets better with every year - or, at least, seeks out ever more challenging variations on his essential English stiffness. Some indication of how successful this performance in particular is: at no point during the movie do you start to think of Morris Minor and the Majors.
2. Jim Broadbent, Another Year
For basically sitting back in comfy jumpers and allowing his female co-stars to steal away with the film. Even so: clock his tremendously expressive double-act with a cafetiere around the halfway mark.
3. Jim Sturgess, Heartless
After Gosling, another pretty boy made good - this (much underrated and underseen) film wouldn't have the emotional sting it does if Sturgess hadn't been forced to raise his game as he does here.
4. Robert Hill, Down Terrace
A performance no-one - save perhaps the family Hill, and Ideal director Ben Wheatley - could have seen coming: both hilarious and chilling as Brighton's most inept crimeboss.
5. Christian Cooke, Cemetery Junction
For making something heroic out of the twin adjectives "nice" and "sensible".
Best Actress
1. Isabelle Huppert, White Material
Probably as tiny and vulnerable as the actress has ever been made in the frame - yet her Maria, stranded behind enemy lines in the middle of a civil war, actually comes to seem the very model of an action heroine, motoring around on scooters and waving away the helicopters sent to rescue her. A beacon of independence, and the most vivid element in a constantly shifting drama, focusing the viewer's attentions whenever the direction gets too Denis-y.
2. Catalina Saavedra, The Maid
Priceless - her triumph is to get us to cheer her reign of mild, passive-aggressive terror against allcomers all the way through.
3. Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Later instalments would betray the character of Lisbeth Salander one way or another, but Rapace here created something indelible, striking, truly kick-ass - and if there were a prize for cheekbones of the year, she'd probably win that, too.
4. Monica del Carmen, Leap Year
For further attempting to dismantle the dappy Bridget Jones myth of the female singleton: a yearning, full body-and-soul turn that retains your sympathy even as the film strays into discomforting territory.
5. Emma Stone, Easy A
And lo, a star was born. The pity's that nobody knew how to market her.
Best British Actress
1. Lesley Manville, Another Year
A whirlwind. But one you believe with your own eyes.
2. Kristin Scott Thomas, Leaving
A Madame Bovary for the era of Robert Peston - and a suitably angular figurehead for this most pointed and provocative of dramas.
3. Ruth Sheen, Another Year
"Life's not always kind," her Gerri says, and we see exactly what she means in her eyes - a subtler turn than Manville's, certainly, but one no less affecting for that.
4. Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham
I'm going to be generous and suggest it's a sign of Ms. Hawkins' versatility that she could give such variable performances in the course of one year - compare and contrast her supremely winning presence here with her role in, erm, Happy Ever Afters.
5. Manjinder Virk, The Arbor
The abiding conceit means she doesn't have a single line of her own to speak as the on-screen embodiment of Lorraine, much-abused daughter of playwright Andrea Dunbar, but her mournful eyes and general air of defensiveness have seared themselves into my consciousness - it's an object lesson in acting without words.
Best British Supporting Actor
1. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
The heart of the matter - providing Fincher and Sorkin with someone graspable to cut to whenever Zuckerberg retreated into himself, or Sean Parker got too flash.
2. Ralph Fiennes, Cemetery Junction
In some ways, the biggest revelation on this list - who, save perhaps Messrs. Gervais and Merchant, could be certain that an actor hardly renowned for his on-screen sense of humour would get the joke? His speech at the company retirement party is a consummate bit of timing - like seeing Leonard Rossiter reborn before our very eyes.
3. Eddie Marsan, Heartless
Quick and effective scene-stealing from a master at his trade.
4. Rhys Ifans, Greenberg
One of a small number of likable things in an otherwise determinedly irksome experience, shambling onto the set as casual as anyone might like - as though the film weren't just a hipster wind-up.
5. David Thewlis, Mr. Nice and London Boulevard
Adding rare character to otherwise middling enterprises - no-one does ratty better than Thewlis, and his Monica Bellucci line in Boulevard remains one of the year's more unexpected comedy highlights.
Best British Supporting Actress
1. Emily Watson, Cemetery Junction
...and while Fiennes held down the comedy end, Watson did superlative work in barely a handful of scenes as someone who knew exactly what kind of joylessness lay in wait for the film's representatives of the next generation if they didn't take the urgent action the narrative required of them. A cautionary performance, tempered by this actress's usual innate kindness.
2. Karina Fernandez, Another Year
For the best scarf-work since Malcolm McDowell in The Company.
3. Natalie Gavin, The Arbor
Sparky and authentic as "The Girl" bringing Andrea Dunbar's first play back to life.
4. Charlotte Rampling, Life During Wartime
She was rather fun this year as the classical dance instructor in StreetDance 3D - but she's rarely been more terrifying than as the cougar from hell in just a few minutes of Todd Solondz's generally conciliatory drama of modern mores - a woman who manages to put the wind up even a convicted paedophile.
5. Rosamund Pike, Made in Dagenham
Our most classical-seeming (and looking) of actresses - you could imagine her in almost any film from the 1940s - yet to find a worthy lead role, but here doing more than anyone to ensure the film's hands-across-the-classes subplot was invested with some degree of subtlety and credibility.
(Tomorrow: Directors, Screenwriters and Newcomers.)
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