The screen version of J.R.R.Tolkien's classic has also earned its director Peter Jackson a best director nomination.

A Beautiful Mind has eight mentions on the shortlist for Hollywood's most prestigious film awards, while lavish musical Moulin Rouge has eight. All three films are nominated for best picture, together with In The Bedroom and Gosford Park, which has seven nods.Global box office smash Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone received just three nominations.

Eight British actors and actresses are nominated for awards - including Dame Judi Dench, who is on the best leading actress shortlist for her role as novelist Iris Murdoch in Iris, and Tom Wilkinson, who has a leading actor nod for In The Bedroom.

Lord of the Rings has the second highest tally of Oscar nominations in history, after All About Eve in 1950 and Titanic in 1997, with 14 each.

Ben Hur and Titanic have the most Oscar statuette wins, with 11 each. The battle for Oscars is being seen as among the keenest and closely contested in many years. Ron Howard, who receives his first nomination as best director, is emerging as a favourite for the award and will battle it out with Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings, Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down, David Lynch for Mulholland Drive and Robert Altman for Gosford Park.

Altman and Scott, in particular, will be hoping to make up for past disappointments. Last year, Scott missed out on the best director Oscar to Steven Soderbergh, for Traffic, while Altman has five past Oscar nods, four of them for best director.

Russell Crowe will be hoping for a repeat of his triumph last year when he won the best actor Oscar for Gladiator - his performance as the mentally ill mathematician John Nash in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind has been widely praised. If he were to win, he would join the élite company of Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks as the only men to scoop the best actor Oscar in consecutive years.

He will fight it out with Tom Wilkinson, Sean Penn, for I Am Sam, Will Smith, for Ali, and Denzel Washington, for Training Day.

First time nominees Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman are the favourites for the best actress award, for roles in Monster's Ball and Moulin Rouge respectively.

The academy's 5,500 voting members - described as "feature film professionals" - decide who is nominated for Oscars. The winners will be announced on Sunday 24 March in a lavish ceremony at the Oscars' new Hollywood home, the Kodak Theater.