Screen Actors Nominations Begin Awards Season

Hollywood's awards season is getting into gear with the announcement of nominations for the Screen Actors Guild gongs for film and television.

With four nods apiece Steven Spielberg's presidential drama Lincoln and the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook topped the movie list.

Les Miserables, the star-studded film adaptation of the musical stage show, was next with three nominations including, Australian star Hugh Jackman for best actor.

There is a good showing for the Brits with nominations for Downton Abbey and its stars Maggie Smith and Michelle Dockery, and nods for Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln and Homeland star Damian Lewis.

The nominations come as Hollywood's annual awards season - which climaxes with the Oscars in February - gets into gear.

The SAG nominees for best ensemble cast - its best movie category - were Iran hostage crisis drama Argo, Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a British comedy set in India.

Jackman was joined on the best actor list by Hangover star Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook, Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, Denzel Washington piloting Flight and John Hawkes in The Sessions.

Best actress nominations included Dame Helen Mirren for Hitchcock, Jessica Chastain in the Osama bin Laden hunt movie Zero Dark Thirty and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook.

Naomi Watts was also nominated, for her performance in Indian Ocean tsunami movie The Impossible, along with French actress Marianne Cotillard in Rust And Bone.

Supporting actor nods went to Alan Arkin for Argo, Spain's Javier Bardem for Skyfall, Robert de Niro for Silver Linings Playbook, Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln and Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master.

Downton star Dame Maggie Smith was nominated as best supporting actress in Marigold Hotel, as was Nicole Kidman for The Paperboy, Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables, Helen Hunt in The Sessions and Sally Field for Lincoln.

On the television front, Modern Family was nominated for best comedy ensemble cast - which it has won for the last two years - along with The Big Bang Theory, Glee, The Office and Nurse Jackie.

Multiple award-winning British period drama Downton Abbey won a nod for best TV drama, along with spy-themed Homeland, cult retro series Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire, which has also won two years running.

Steve Buscemi was nominated for best TV drama actor in Boardwalk Empire, along with Jon Hamm for Mad Men, Damian Lewis in Homeland, Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad and Jeff Daniels in The Newsroom.

Best TV actress nods went to Emmy-winner Claire Danes for Homeland, Michelle Dockery and Maggie Smith for Downton Abbey, Jessica Lange for American Horror Story: Asylum and Julianna Margulies for The Good Wife.

The SAG awards will be handed out on January 27 in Los Angeles. The Golden Globe winners will be announced on January 13, and the Oscars on February 24.