THE King’s Speech won top prizes over the weekend from Hollywood actors and directors, securing its standing as the film to beat at the February 27 Oscars, whose winners mostly look like foregone conclusions.

Front-runners coasted to victory at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards — lead performers Colin Firth as Queen Elizabeth II’s stuttering dad in The King’s Speech and Natalie Portman as a ballerina going off her rocker in Black Swan, plus supporting players Christian Bale as a boxer on the skids and Melissa Leo as his doting but domineering mother in The Fighter.

The King’s Speech also won the SAG award for overall acting ensemble. A day earlier, the film was an upset winner at the Directors Guild of America Awards, where its filmmaker Tom Hooper triumphed over David Fincher, who had been considered the favourite for The Social Network.

While Fincher’s Facebook chronicle dominated at the Golden Globes and critics’ awards early in the season, momentum abruptly shifted to The King’s Speech in barely a week.

“I’d like to thank security for letting me into the building,” Firth said as he accepted his SAG trophy.

His joke points up how quickly The King’s Speech usurped front-runner status from The Social Network, which appeared to have a smooth ride toward a best-picture and director win at the Oscars.

The previous weekend, The King’s Speech was a surprise recipient for the top award from the Producers Guild of America. Last Tuesday, the film led Oscar contenders with 12 nominations.

The directors and actors guild honours, the last major ceremonies before the Oscars, may have sealed the deal for The King’s Speech at Hollywood’s biggest party.

Only six times in the 62-year history of the Directors Guild awards has the winner there failed to go on to claim the best-director Oscar. And whatever film claims best director at the Oscars usually takes best picture, too.

All four Screen Actor surprises at the Oscars, it’s likely in the actress categories.

Portman faces tough competition from Annette Bening as a stern lesbian mom in The Kids Are All Right. Bening’s a beloved figure in Hollywood who has been nominated for Oscars three times previously without winning, so she might have a shot.

And the supporting-actress lineup includes a dazzling performance from 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in her screen debut as a girl who hires a boozy lawman to track her father’s killer in the Western True Grit. This is the one Oscar category where teens and preteens have shone, with past wins by 16-year-old Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker), 11-year-old Anna Paquin (The Piano) and 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal (Paper Moon).

But at age 50, Leo somehow has become a fresh-faced darling in Hollywood despite a decades-long career. She had early success on TV’s Homicide: Life on the Street in the 1990s.