BAFTA red carpet rolls out for foreign films including All Quiet on the Western Front

Germany, Ireland and Chinese martial arts loom large as British cinema hands out its BAFTA awards on Sunday, with less than a month to go to the Oscars.

With 14 nods, German director Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Frontis the joint most-nominated foreign-language film in the BAFTA academy's 76-year history.

It has tied with Ang Lee's martial arts drama Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, co-starring Michelle Yeoh, which won the same number of nominations in 2001.

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Yeoh is nominated for best actress this year as a worn-down laundromat owner who transforms into a high-kicking heroine, in the wildly inventive Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Yeoh's kung-fu science-fiction film received 10 BAFTA nominations, as did the pitch-black Irish comedy The Banshees of Inisherinco-starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

The US co-directors of Everything Everywhere All At Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, are up jointly for the best director prize, as is Berger and Martin McDonagh for Banshees.

McDonagh is one of the rare British nominees for this year's top gongs. But the Daniels, as they are known in the industry, will be hoping to build on their success at the Directors Guild of America awards on Saturday.

"What the hell? Guys, thank you so much. This has been an incredible year for our little film that somehow keeps going," a visibly shocked Kwan told the annual gala in Beverly Hills.

Elvis, Baz Luhrmann's biopic of the king of rock and roll, is on nine BAFTA nominations, with classical music psychological drama "Tar" in line for five awards including best actress for Cate Blanchett.

The main awards of the ceremony, the highlight of the British film calendar and a key indicator to the Oscars on March 12, will be handed out at London's Royal Festival Hall from 1900 GMT.