He was working in a warehouse in Leeds folding shirts when he was cast to star in a film about the life, loves and brief musical reign of Joy Division's ill-fated frontman, Ian Curtis.

Today Sam Riley found himself being tipped for Oscars glory alongside 30 international stars of the screen singled out by the industry bible, Variety, whose predictions are regarded as a barometer of the film world.

With the Golden Globes nominations to be announced next month, before the Baftas in January, the film world is already gripped by awards fever, before the ultimate prize awarded by the American Academy.

In his first role as a leading man, Riley found widespread acclaim this year at the Cannes Film Festival, with the premiere of Control, in which he portrayed the post-punk icon who committed suicide 27 years ago at the age of 23.

The brooding charisma of Riley's performance did not go unnoticed. While the debut film director Anton Corbijn said that the newcomer had brought “an innocence and freshness that I was hoping for but never thought I would find”, Variety said that Riley was “as mesmerising onstage as he is while engaged in rocking his daughter to sleep, working for social services and other such punk rocker incongruities”.

Other British hopefuls on the list include the actor Daniel Day-Lewis and the screenwriter Ronald Harwood, who are no strangers to the Oscars red carpet, having won for My Left Foot and The Pianist respectively.

This time Day-Lewis is up for Paul Thomas Anderson's There WIll Be Blood, in which he plays the Texas prospector from the Upton Sinclair novel, while Harwood, whose earlier acclaimed films include The Dresser, starring Tom Courteney, could be up for two screenplays, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, from the book dictated by the paralysed French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, and Love in the Time of Cholera, from the novel by Nobel prizewinner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Variety said of Harwood's films: “The pair are contrasting challenges, one a memoir of a man trapped in his body, the other a sprawling love story playing out over decades. Harwood handles each with aplomb.”

While Keira Knightley is expected to get a Best Actress nomination for her latest role as Cecilia Tallis in Atonement, she could face competition from Tilda Swinton, for Michael Clayton, in which she co-stars with George Clooney, as a corporate lawyer - carving “another notch in her long history of iconoclastic roles”, Variety said.

Her British co-star, Tom Wilkinson, also gives an award-worthy performance that “leaves one wondering how it could have been six years since his last Oscar nomination", for In the Bedroom.

Beyond the British contenders, the list includes the Australian star, Cate Blanchett, for performances that include the charismatic monarch in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Variety has been wowed by her “chameleon-like ability to shape-shift” for each of her roles.

Russell Crowe is also included, described as a great actor with “a capacity for total self-surrender to a role - rarely does a performer have both”. It compares the lethal force he personified in L.A. Confidential with his portrayal of a dogged police investigator in American Gangster.

“Don't buy the bad-boy image. Inside, there's a serious, gifted artist,” Variety said.

Few will be surprised that the French actress Marion Cotillard, is also featured. She wowed the critics as Edith Piaf, depicting the tormented singer in La Vie en Rose, from her impoverished childhood to her frail final days. Audiences had to keep reminding themselves that they were watching an actress rather than Piaf herself.

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