It's difficult to pinpoint the reason that this year's list of Academy Award nominees featured more surprises than any set in recent memory. Perhaps it was the controversy over the Motion Picture Association of America's screener ban, which many argued would reduce the viability of independent films. Perhaps the momentum of favorites was thrown off by the organization's new shortened schedule. The Academy moved the awards up by a month to Feb. 29-ostensibly to reduce cutthroat campaigning, but more likely an attempt to boost flagging TV ratings by presenting awards when the previous year's movies are still fresh in audiences members' minds.

While "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" dominated as expected, with 11 nominations, the acting categories featured multiple out-of-left-field names. In the Supporting Actor category, Tim Robbins ("Mystic River") and Alec Baldwin ("The Cooler") were the only real shoo-ins. The nominations of Benicio Del Toro ("21 Grams") and Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai") were probable, but Djimon Hounsou from "In America" was a total surprise. In Supporting Actress, expected nominees Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain"), Patricia Clarkson ("Pieces of April"), Holly Hunter ("Thirteen") and Marcia Gay Harden ("Mystic River") were joined by Shohreh Aghdashloo. Her work as a fraught Iranian housewife in "House of Sand and Fog," affecting though it was, had heretofore been overshadowed by co-stars Jennifer Connelly and Best Actor nominee Ben Kinglsey's more fiery roles.

The Best Actor race was the only major category to unfold as expected: Kingsley was joined by Jude Law ("Cold Mountain"), Bill Murray ("Lost in Translation") and Sean Penn ("Mystic River"), with Johnny Depp earning enough popular support to pull off a nomination for his jaunty, eccentric turn in "The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl."

The Best Actress race, however, threw conventional wisdom to the wind. Nicole Kidman was shut out for her role in "Cold Mountain"-and indeed, the film, a multiple Golden Globe nominee that had been expected to sweep up an armful of Oscar nominations, failed also to get Picture, Director or Screenplay nominations. Rather, joining Charlize Theron ("Monster"), Naomi Watts ("21 Grams") and Diane Keaton ("Something's Gotta Give") were two actresses who have been relative no-shows in the pre-Oscar races. Samantha Morton garnered a nomination for her role as an immigrant mother of two in Jim Sheridan's "In America," and Keisha Castle-Hughes, the sweet-faced heroine of Niki Caro's summer indie hit "Whale Rider," became, at 13, the youngest Best Actress nominee in history. At this point, Golden Globe winner Theron, whose performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos was a wonder of physical and psychological transformation, is gaining momentum as the favorite.

The Best Director category featured the biggest surprise of the day. Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation"), Clint Eastwood ("Mystic River"), Peter Jackson ("The Return of the King") and Peter Weir ("Master and Commander") were all awarded with nominations to accompany their Best Picture nominees. The category was rounded out with Fernando Meirelles, whose "City of God" was released last summer, seen by very few and won not a single critics' award.

It's a little disheartening that after such an inspiring list of nominees, one of the nominees for the Best Picture category's was "Seabiscuit," a decent film whose studio, Universal, essentially bought the nomination through a blitz of campaigning worthy of Miramax. Nonetheless, the 2004 Academy Award nominees, for whatever reason, are undeniably in a different vein from recent years. Little-seen but worthy films-"House of Sand and Fog," "In America," "Lost in Translation," "American Splendor" and so on-stole the thunder of bloated late-December studio prestige pieces like "The Last Samurai" and "Cold Mountain," and made for the most well-rounded and creditable set of nominees in years.

By comparison, last Sunday's Golden Globe awards were nothing if not predictable. The Globes have mutated over the years from a madcap event that few took seriously and everyone enjoyed, to a more staid ceremony seemingly weighed down by its responsibility as an increasingly reliable Oscar predictor. In fact, the only surprises of Sunday's telecast were in the TV categories that carry no such burden. The movie awards featured nary an unexpected winner, and set up strong favorites for the Academy Awards. It seems clear that Sean Penn and Bill Murray, winners for Best Actor Drama and Best Actor Musical or Comedy, respectively, are the front-runners for the Oscar, Penn likely having the edge thanks to the weighty nature of his role. Zellweger, winner for Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, has all but a lock on the Oscar, particularly after having lost last year to "Cold Mountain" co-star Kidman, who won for "The Hours." As for Best Picture ... well, despite a Best Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe for "Lost in Translation" and deep, widespread respect for "Mystic River," it will take much more to dethrone "Rings," which will finally receive the heavyweight awards that have thus far eluded Peter Jackson's superb trilogy. Next year, we can hope for a Best Picture horse race. This year, just make way for the "King."