George Clooney is to battle the Nazis in his next film role.

The actor, whose latest film, The Descendants, has been heavily tipped for Academy Awards success, is to play an art historian attempting to restore artworks stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners.

Mr Clooney will not only star in The Monuments Men, he will also write and direct the film.

The story, about a group of curators who were sent around Europe on the mission by the US government, will be based on a history of the effort, written in 2009, by Robert Edsel.

The actor said he was excited to start work. "If we're going to do a commercial film we thought, 'Let's do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.'"