Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr

Place your bets now — the first official Oscar win predictions began on 15 December with the announcement of the 67th annual Golden Globe Award nominees. The nominee list was broadcast live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles by Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) president Philip Berk, joined singer Justin Timberlake, American actor John Krasinski and German actress Diane Kruger, who starred in one of this year’s best drama picture nominees, Inglorious Basterds, The Hollywood Reporter.

British talent dominated this year’s best actress in a drama category with three nominations for British actresses, including Helen Mirren, for her role as the wife of Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, Carrie Mulligan, for her debut performance as a 1960s schoolgirl in a relationship with a much older man in An Education, and Emily Blunt for playing Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria. Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side and Gabourey Sidibe in Precious were the remaining nominees, reported The Times.

British actor Colin Firth was nominated for best actor in a drama for his role as a grieving gay academic in A Single Man, reported The Guardian. Firth will face a line of Hollywood heavyweights such as George Clooney in the comedy-drama Up in the Air, Morgan Freeman in Invictus for his portrayal of Nelson Mandela, Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, and Toby Maguire in Brothers, reported The Los Angeles Times.

Daniel Day Lewis was nominated for best actor in a comedy or musical for his role in the musical Nine, along with Robert Downey Jr. from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Matt Damon in The Informant, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in (500) Days of Summer and Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man. The best actress category for comedy or musical included Julia Roberts in Duplicity, a second nomination for Sandra Bullock in The Proposal, Marion Cotillard in Nine, and a double-nomination for Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated and Julie and Julia.

Up in the Air earned the most nominations with a total of six including best drama, best director, best screenplay and two for best supporting actress.

Some critics don’t give the Globes much weight in measuring Oscar win potential, saying the HFPA tends to nominate actors based on “star power” and not performance, to secure a red carpet spectacle. But in 15 out of the last 22 years, the best picture Oscar win has matched the best drama or comedy/musical from the Globes, as it  did with last year’s biggest winner, Slumdog Millionaire, reported The New York Times. But there were also cases where both awards were not aligned, such as in 2007 when best picture at the Globes went to Atonement while the Oscar went to No Country for Old Men, said The Los Angeles Times. Another reason for the divergence may be in that the Globes have separate categories for dramatic films and comedies/musicals.

The 2010 Golden Globe Awards will be hosted by British comedian Ricky Gervais at the Beverly Hilton on 17 January.

Read the full list of this year’s Golden Globe Award nominees