LOS ANGELES – The ensemble drama Babel, the musical Dreamgirls and the road-trip tale Little Miss Sunshine each earned three nominations Thursday for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, while Leonardo DiCaprio and Helen Mirren both scored two nominations.

Ms. Mirren was nominated for playing both of England's two Queen Elizabeths, as best actress in a film as the current monarch in The Queen and as best actress in a TV movie or miniseries for playing her predecessor in Elizabeth I.

The TV role earned Ms. Mirren an Emmy last fall, while she is considered the favorite to win the best-actress Oscar for The Queen.

Mr. DiCaprio had a lead-actor film nomination as a mercenary hunting a rare gem in the African adventure Blood Diamond and a supporting-actor nomination as a cop undercover in a Boston crime gang in The Departed.

At the upcoming Golden Globes, Mr. DiCaprio was nominated as lead actor for both films, but under SAG rules, he was entered in different categories. Oscar voters are free to cast ballots for actors in lead or supporting categories.

Dreamgirls grabbed supporting nominations for Eddie Murphy as a soul singer and Jennifer Hudson as a vocal powerhouse booted out of a Supremes-like trio. The film also had a slot in the guild's category for best overall acting ensemble, which includes Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé Knowles, who were shut out in the lead-acting nominations.

The other ensemble nominees were Babel, the Robert Kennedy drama Bobby, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine.

Key cast members from some of those films – among them Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon of The Departed, Brad Pitt of Babel, and Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell of Little Miss Sunshine –were overlooked for individual nominations.

Mr. Carell did score a TV nomination as best actor in a comedy series for The Office, which also was among nominees for best comedy ensemble.

Another notable snub was Sacha Baron Cohen, who has a Golden Globe nomination as best actor for a comedy or musical for the hit comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan but was not among guild picks.

Mr. Cohen's Oscar-nomination prospects for the outrageous role as a crass, clueless Kazakh journalist remain fuzzy. Oscar voters tend to favor heavyweight dramatic performances over comic turns.

Along with Ms. Mirren, other likely Oscar favorites and nominees dominated the guild choices, including Forest Whitaker as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland and Peter O'Toole as an aging actor whose lecherous ways are revived by a young woman in Venus.

The guild also had some surprise nominees, including Ryan Gosling for lead actor as a teacher with a drug problem in the acclaimed but little-seen drama Half Nelson and child actor Abigail Breslin for supporting actress as a 7-year-old obsessed with competing in beauty pageants in Little Miss Sunshine.

Will Smith rounded out the lead-actor field as a homeless dad in The Pursuit of Happyness.

Joining Ms. Mirren for lead-actress nominations were Penélope Cruz as a woman with bizarre family crises in Volver; Judi Dench as a scheming teacher in Notes on a Scandal; Meryl Streep as the boss from hell in The Devil Wears Prada; and Kate Winslet as a woman having an affair with a neighbor in Little Children.

Babel also had supporting-actress nominations for Adriana Barraza as a nanny in peril and Rinko Kikuchi as a deaf schoolgirl. Little Miss Sunshine also earned a nomination for Alan Arkin as a foul-mouthed, heroin-snorting grandfather.

The guild picks are one of the last major announcements in Hollywood awards season before Academy Awards nominations come out Jan. 23. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 25.

Actors guild winners often go on to win Oscars, including three SAG winners from last year: lead performers Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote and Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, and supporting actress Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener.

Last year's winner for the guild's prize for the overall acting ensemble, Crash, also went on to the win the best-picture Oscar.

The SAG Awards will be presented Jan. 28 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS.

Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond; Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson; Peter O'Toole, Venus; Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness; Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Actress: Penélope Cruz, Volver; Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal; Helen Mirren, The Queen; Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada; Kate Winslet, Little Children

Supporting actor: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine; Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed; Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children; Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond; Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Supporting actress: Adriana Barraza, Babel; Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal; Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls; Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Cast: Babel, Bobby, The Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine

Actor in a movie or miniseries: Thomas Haden Church, Broken Trail; Robert Duvall, Broken Trail; Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth I; William H. Macy, Nightmares & Dreamscapes; Matthew Perry, The Ron Clark Story

Actress in a movie or miniseries: Annette Bening, Mrs. Harris ; Shirley Jones, Hidden Places; Cloris Leachman, Mrs. Harris; Helen Mirren, Elizabeth I; Greta Scacchi, Broken Trail

Actor in a drama series: James Gandolfini, The Sopranos; Michael C. Hall, Dexter; Hugh Laurie, House; James Spader, Boston Legal; Kiefer Sutherland, 24

Actress in a drama series: Patricia Arquette, Medium; Edie Falco, The Sopranos; Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer; Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy

Actor in a comedy series: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock; Steve Carell, The Office; Jason Lee, My Name Is Earl; Jeremy Piven, Entourage; Tony Shalhoub, Monk

Actress in a comedy series: America Ferrera, Ugly Betty; Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine; Megan Mullally, Will & Grace ; Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds; Jaime Pressly, My Name Is Earl

Drama series cast: 24, Boston Legal, Deadwood , Grey's Anatomy, The Sopranos

Comedy series cast: Desperate Housewives, Entourage , The Office, Ugly Betty, Weeds