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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A neo-noir romance and a sweeping historical look at a Sicilian village were among the foreign language films earning Golden Globe nominations on Tuesday, hoping to boost recognition in the United States.

The five nominees come from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Chile, and only Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and Italy's Giuseppe Tornatore have seen previous films get nominated before. Both walked away winners.

Tornatore, who won in 1990 for his "Cinema Paradiso," is back this year with "Baaria," a film that looks at three generations in the life of a Sicilian family

Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," starring Penelope Cruz, fuses a neo-noir style with a sprawling tale of dangerous love. The director has earned foreign language nominations for five of his films in the past, and he won for "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her."

"Although I've received nominations before and I've even won Golden Globes in the past, every new nomination comes to me as a big and pleasant surprise," he said in a statement.

While Almodovar is well-known and "Cinema Paradiso" proved to be a crowd pleaser in the United States, all the other nominated films come from directors who have never received a Golden Globe before and will be looking to boost the recognition of their work for U.S. audiences.

The Golden Globes, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are annually one of most-watched awards shows on TV, although 2009's program drew the second-lowest total viewers since 1995 with an audience of 14.6 million.

Still, filmmakers looking to the show as a platform from which to promote their films, either for box offices or DVD.