Billy Elliot is being touted as a big winner at next year's Oscars, and could very well dethrone 1994's Four Weddings and a Funeral as the most successful British film amongst American film-goers, says the Daily Express today.

Variety, the influential Hollywood trade paper, has devoted a leading front page article to the film, even though it hasn't even opened in the States. "There haven't been so many firsts and breakthroughs bound up in a single Brit pic since Four Weddings led the way out of the British film industry's early nineties gloom," it declared.

Universal Pictures, which is distributing the film in the US, is also planning to give Billy Elliot a big push when it opens there this weekend. The film, which was released in the UK two weeks ago, has already taken more than £3m at the box office, despite costing only £2.9m to make.

Set against the backdrop of the 1984 miners' strike, it tells the story of a miner's son who dreams of going to the Royal Ballet School and stars 14-year-old newcomer Jamie Bell and veteran Julie Walters. The film's success is also a personal triumph for director and erstwhile theatre impresario Stephen Daldry, who looks likely to follow fellow British director Sam Mendes into the Hollywood big time with his directorial debut.