Academy Awards nominee: A Single Man

Former Gucci head designer Tom Ford confounded the critics when his first feature - A Single Man - proved to be as substantial as it was stylish. Its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September received plaudits all round - and won its star, the English actor Colin Firth, the festival's best actor award.

Firth plays George, a gay English professor mourning the death in a car crash of his longtime partner Jim (Matthew Goode) in 1960s Los Angeles. The film was adapted by Ford from the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name and co-stars Julianne Moore as George's best friend, Charley.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun Times:  "The first-time director Tom Ford, the famous fashion designer, has been faulted for over-designing the film, but perhaps that misses the point. Perhaps George has over-designed his inner vision."

Manohla Dargis, the New York Times: "Mr Ford's single man might be less common than Isherwood's, a bit too exquisitely dressed. But with Mr Firth, Mr Ford has created a gay man troubled by ordinary grief and haunted by joy, a man apart and yet like any other."

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter: "The theme of the search for meaning after a great loss is developed with great sensitivity thanks to Colin Firth's moving performance in the main role - for which he won the best actor prize here - and should help the film go beyond gay audiences to attract the more mainstream attention of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Far From Heaven."

Betsy Sharkey, the Los Angeles Times: "We're always looking for those performances that truly define an actor, where we can sit back and simply watch the talent soar. For Colin Firth, A Single Man is that film."

'A Single Man' opens in the UK on February 12. ·