It took less than five minutes yesterday morning to seal the fates of hundreds of people working in the international film industry. The build-up to the nominations for the 71st annual Academy Awards had grown in intensity over the past few weeks with the trade papers littered with expensive promotional advertising and the media in general awash with speculation.

Then, at the ungodly time of 5.38 in Los Angeles yesterday morning, the Academy president, Robert Rehme, and the Oscar-winning actor, Kevin Spacey, opened the envelopes on live, coast-to-coast television, to announce the shortlists in nine of the 24 Oscar categories; within minutes the nominees in the other categories were transmitted across the world on the Academy's website.

The big winner was the romantic comedy, Shakespeare in Love, which led the field with 13 nominations, just one short of the record shared by All About Eve and Titanic. And Steven Spielberg's visceral war movie, Saving Private Ryan, was close behind with 11 nominations, all the more remarkable given that it failed to secure a single place in any of the four acting categories.

The other big winner was another film set during the second World War, Roberto Benigni's Italian film, La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful), which made Oscar history as the first foreign-language film to earn seven nominations; Das Boot and Fanny and Alexander had shared the previous record with six apiece. And Benigni himself received three personal nominations, as the star, director and co-writer of La Vita e Bella.

Previewing the nominations last Saturday, I noted that it was conceivable that the five places for best picture could be taken by three movies set during the second World War - Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and La Vita e Bella - and two featuring Queen Elizabeth I - Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth. And so it proved when the nominations were announced yesterday, with the result that The Truman Show was surprisingly shut out in two major categories - best picture and best actor (Jim Carrey).

Nor was there any good news for the Irish contenders. Meryl Streep was nominated as best actress yet again, but it was for One True Thing rather than Dancing at Lughnasa. Despite excellent reviews in the US, John Boorman's The General and Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy failed to receive any recognition from the Oscars electorate. And despite an intensive promotional campaign, the stage-Irish comedy, Waking Ned Devine, made in the Isle of Man, came out empty-handed, even though many US commentators were tipping the veteran Irish actor, David Kelly, as a best supporting actor contender.

However, the strongly international flavour of this year's nominations was reflected most significantly in the acting categories. Americans took only half of the 20 acting nominations this year, with five going to Britain, three to Australia, and one each to Italy and Brazil.

This is how the nominations shaped up in the principal categories. There are five nominees in each category.

Best Picture: The predilection of the Academy voters for period pictures is abundantly evident here with the inclusion of the three strong contenders set during the second World War - Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line and Roberto Benigni's La Vita e Bella - and the two movies featuring Queen Elizabeth I - John Madden's Shakespeare in Love and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth.

The nomination of La Vita e Bella here and in the best foreign-language category makes it the first film to be short-listed in both categories in the same year since Z in 1969. The biggest upset here is the exclusion of the most strongly fancied contender in a contemporary setting, Peter Weir's richly imaginative and highly pertinent The Truman Show. It is generally believed it was pipped for the fifth place on the shortlist by Elizabeth.

Best Director: There is some compensation for The Truman Show here with the selection of its director, Peter Weir, over the director of Elizabeth, Shekhar Kapur. The other four best picture nominees all make the grade here, producing an international line-up that in addition to Weir, who is Australian, includes two Americans, Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick, along with an Italian, Roberto Benigni, and an Englishman, John Madden.

Malick's nomination solidifies the comeback of an enigmatic director who showed exceptional promise with the two films he made in the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, before he disappeared from film-making for 20 years.

Best Actor: Most surprisingly, neither of this year's two Golden Globe winners for best actor make the shortlist - Jim Carrey, who won the Globe for best actor (drama) for The Truman Show, and Michael Caine, the winner for best actor (comedy or musical) for Little Voice. An even bigger surprise is the inclusion of the gifted young Edward Norton for his portrayal of a racist skinhead who tries to reform in the little-seen American History X.

Nominated for Saving Private Ryan, Academy darling, Tom Hanks, is aiming for his third best actor Oscar of the decade. The great English actor, Ian McKellen, is nominated for his first Oscar, for his bravura portrayal of the gay English film-maker, James Whale, in the low-budget Gods and Monsters. Nick Nolte is back in contention with his finest performance in years, as an emotionally bruised small-town sheriff in Paul Schrader's Affliction. And Roberto Benigni is nominated for his own movie, La Vita e Bella.

Best Actress: Meryl Strep gains her 11th Oscar nomination, placing her joint second with Jack Nicholson in the record books as the most nominated actors after Katharine Hepburn. But Streep is nominated not for Dancing at Lughnasa, but for One True Thing, in which she movingly plays a woman dying of cancer.

The only other American on the shortlist is Gwyneth Paltrow, for Shakespeare in Love. Completing the line-up are the Australian, Cate Blanchett, for Elizabeth; the 69-year-old Brazilian, Fernanda Montenegro, for Central Station; and the young English actress, Emily Watson, for her intense portrayal of the English cellist, Jacqueline du Pre in Hilary & Jackie.

Best Supporting Actress: Joan Allen, Lisa Kudrow and Sharon Stone were among the American front-runners who failed to take a place in this category which yields just one US nominee, former Oscar-winner Kathy Bates for Primary Colors. The only first-time nominee in the group is the Australian actress, Rachel Griffiths, for Hilary & Jackie.

Lynn Redgrave gets her first nomination in over 30 years, looking unrecognisable as James Whale's protective housekeeper in Gods and Monsters. Brenda Blethyn, a recent best actress nominee for Secrets & Lies, is nominated for Little Voice. And Judi Dench, nominated for playing Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown last year, is nominated for another regal role, as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.

Best Supporting Actor: There were well over a dozen plausible contenders in this, the most tightly contested acting category, and among those who missed out were the Irish actor, David Kelly, along with Donald Sutherland, William H Macy, and all the soldiers in Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line - and most surprisingly, Bill Murray for his hilarious comic turn in Rushmore.

The only non-American nominee is Geoffrey Rush (who already has won the best actor Oscar for Shine) for Shakespeare in Love.

Another former best actor winner, Robert Duvall, is back in contention as a wily, seasoned lawyer in the legal drama, A Civil Action. Billy Bob Thornton, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Sling Blade, is a formidable contender as a slow-witted hillbilly in the riveting moral drama, A Simple Plan.

Formerly nominated for Apollo 13, Ed Harris takes the only acting nomination for The Truman Show, and veteran actor James Coburn finally receives his first Oscar nomination as the abusive father of the Nick Nolte character in Affliction.

Best Foreign-Language Film: This is always the oddest, least predictable Oscar category, and so it proved again with yesterday's shortlist of five selected from 45 national entries. The two frontrunners made the grade, La Vita e Bella (Italy) and Central Station (Brazil). But there was no place for such formidable achievements as Festen (Denmark), The Dream Life of Angels (France), Run Lola Run (Germany), The Inheritors (Austria) and last year's Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, Eternity and a Day (Greece).

Instead, the other three places on the shortlist went to Carlos Saura's Tango (Argentina); Jose Luis Graci's The Grandfather (Spain) and Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven (Iran).

Best Original Screenplay: The nominations seem a mere formality here given that Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard are widely expected to walk away with this Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. Roberto Benigni gets his third personal nomination this year, as co-writer of La Vita e Bella.

Warren Beatty is back in the ring as co-writer of Bulworth, while Robert Rodat is in for Saving Private Ryan, and the imaginative New Zealand writer, Andrew Niccol, well deserves his place for The Truman Show. The most glaring omission is Todd Solondz for the bold and powerful Happiness.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Terrence Malick takes a second personal nomination here for his James Jones adaptation, The Thin Red Line, and regular nominee Elaine May gets a nod for her sophisticated screenplay for Primary Colors. Scott Frank's excellent Elmore Leonard adaptation, Out of Sight, is deservedly on the list, as are Scott B Smith for adapting his own novel, A Simple Plan, and writer-director Bill Condon for Gods and Monsters.

The 71st Academy Awards ceremony, to be compered by Whoopi Goldberg, will be held in the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion of the Los Angeles Music Centre on Sunday, March 21st.