The nominations for the Golden Globe awards will be announced later, belatedly firing the starting gun for this year's Hollywood awards season.

The Globes are second in importance to the Oscars and mark the first major ceremony in the calendar, but have been delayed this year because of Covid-19.

British stars like Olivia Colman, Carey Mulligan, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sacha Baron Cohen are tipped for nominations.

Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and the late Chadwick Boseman are in contention too.

Here are six things to look out for.

1. The favourites for Oscars season

With most cinemas closed and many film releases moving to streaming or moving back by months, the usual awards buzz and campaigning have been disrupted - so the field is wide open.

But the Golden Globe nominations will give us an idea of which films could be the frontrunners when looking ahead to the Oscars at the end of April.

They could include The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix), written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about a group of protest leaders accused of inciting a riot at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. The cast includes Brits Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Rylance, who could both be up for acting awards.

Nomadland (in cinemas 19 March TBC) stars double Oscar winner Frances McDormand as a casualty of the 2008 financial crash who now lives a nomadic life on the road in a van. Mank (Netflix) stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the man who wrote Citizen Kane with Orson Welles.

And Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Netflix), adapted from August Wilson's play about 1920s' blues musicians, is likely to do well in the acting categories for Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. It was his final film before he died of cancer at the age of 43 last August.

2. A female director - or two

Only five women have been nominated for best director at the Golden Globes, the last being Ava DuVernay in 2014. This year, it's likely that two of the five nominees will be female for the first time.

They are Chloé Zhao for Nomadland, and actress-turned-director Regina King for One Night In Miami (Amazon Prime), which was adapted from Kemp Powers' play about the meeting between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown in 1964. Expect both to get Oscar nominations too.

3. Your favourite lockdown streaming shows

One difference between the Golden Globes and the Oscars is that the Globes include TV shows - and many people will be more familiar with the TV nominees than the films this year.

The fourth season of The Crown (Netflix) is likely to feature strongly, despite a row over how it portrays the Royal Family. Fellow Netflix hits Schitt's Creek, Ozark and The Queen's Gambit are also tipped to fare well.

Look out too for Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman's thriller The Undoing, which got lots of people talking at the end of 2020; and Lovecraft Country (both Sky/NowTV), a 1950s sci-fi horror that tackles both racism and monsters.

We wait to see whether Bridgerton (Netflix) will be deemed worthy, while there could be recognition for BBC series I May Destroy You, Normal People and Small Axe (all on BBC iPlayer).

4. Colman and Baron Cohen at the double

Another difference between the Globes and the Oscars is that the Globes split many categories in two - with separate shortlists for drama and musical/comedy. So some actors have a good chance of being nominated more than once.

Olivia Colman could be nominated for playing the Queen in The Crown and for her role in forthcoming film drama The Father (release TBC).

Baron Cohen could get nods for both The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Borat 2 (Amazon Prime), which is likely to feature in the comedy/musical categories.

And Anya Taylor-Joy could also be up for two Globes - for The Queen's Gambit and the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma (various on-demand stores).

5. The British invasion

As well as the British stars and shows listed above, many more are in with a shout.

In the film categories, there could be Globe love for Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman, release TBC), Sir Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal, release TBC), Dev Patel (The Personal History of David Copperfield, Amazon Prime/on demand), Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman, Netflix), Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods, Netflix) and Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah, release TBC).

On the TV side, look out for various stars of The Crown including Emma Corrin, who played Princess Diana, alongside Colman, Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles, Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret and adopted Brit Gillian Anderson as former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Other TV stars in with a shout include Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You), Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People), John Boyega (Small Axe), Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason, Sky/NowTV), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, iPlayer), Phoebe Dynevor (Bridgerton), Matt Berry (What We Do In The Shadows, iPlayer) and Nicholas Hoult (The Great, All 4).
6. The Netflix show

Netflix is likely to dominate in both the TV and film categories, with the cinema shutdown having given the streaming giant a strong advantage on both sides of the industry. What it would still really like, though, is to be the first streaming company to win Hollywood's top prize - best picture at the Oscars.

Nomadland could stand in its way, however, and is currently the favourite. This year's dark horse could be Minari (in cinemas 19 March TBC), about a Korean-American family in search of the American dream. However, Globes organisers prompted controversy by decreeing it is only eligible for the best foreign language film award at their ceremony because most of its dialogue is in Korean, even though it was filmed in the US.

A lot could change between now and the Oscar nominations on 15 March, and the ceremony itself on 25 April.

The Golden Globe winners will be announced on 28 February in a bi-coastal ceremony hosted by Tina Fey in New York and Amy Poehler in Los Angeles. The pair previously co-hosted the show, from a single location, from 2013 to 2015.

Wednesday's nominations could be accompanied by more information about how much of the ceremony will be virtual and how much will be in-person.