War Horse gallops to the top spot

With an impressive haul of £3.9m, 'War Horse' easily beat the competition to claim the top spot at cinemas over the weekend.

Shot entirely on location in the UK, 'War Horse' took home £7,800 as a per screen average. Over a similar period last year, 'The King's Speech' managed £3.3m. It will be interesting to see if Spielberg's epic will be able to get anywhere close to the long term success of the Colin Firth film, although that seems unlikely at this stage as the awards haven't been flowing in.

[See also: BAFTA nominations are here]

In second place, and only dropping by a respectable 32% was 'The Iron Lady'. With Golden Globe success for Meryl Streep, and nominations looking certain at the other major ceremonies, we might see the Thatcher biopic hanging around the charts for a while yet.

'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' and 'M:I4' fought it out for the next two spots, with Downey Jr. beating Tom Cruise, possibly benefiting from Sherlock's small screen adventures.

'Shame' and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' are the two 18-certificate films in the top 10. The former enjoyed strong previews and great reviews, although word-of-mouth is helping the latter to pass £10m at some point this week.

[See also: Five things the Golden Globes tell us about the Oscars]

Finally, expect 'The Artist' to do big business this week following it's success at the Golden Globes and a rapid expansion to more screens on Friday.