Just as the Fellowship gets closer to the end of a glorious quest in "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King", so too does the movie's quest for Oscar gold. The third installment of trilogy garnered 11 nominations across the board when the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) revealed the list of nominees Tuesday. Among the Rings accolades, nods for Best Picture and Best Director, for Peter Jackson.

Close behind, with a total of 10 nominations, was the Napoleonic era naval adventure "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World". The film will go head to head with "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" in both the Best Picture and Best Director (Peter Weir) categories.

Don't count out Sofia Coppola's indie-flick "Lost In Translation", though. A Golden Globe favorite, the film garnered four nods, including Best Picture. Also nominated for Best Director, Coppola makes Oscar history by being the first American female director ever nominated. If she wins, she'll be the third generation of Coppolas to win an Oscar.

Also making Oscar history is the nomination of Keisha Castle-Hughes in the Best Actress category. Just 11 when she made the film about a New Zealand girl who bucks tradition to become the leader of her Maori tribe, Castle-Hughes, at 13, is the youngest person ever nominated in this category. Even more interesting about this is the fact that the film's distributor had actually submitted her for consideration in the Supporting Actress category, but Oscar voters decided to upsize her nomination to the lead category.

There are some interesting trends this year. Among them, the predominance of nominations from lower-budget independent cinema. Four of the five Best Actress nominations are from independent films, as are three of the Best Supporting Actor, and two of the Best Supporting Actress hopefuls. Now, granted, most of these are not necessarily unknown actors. In fact several of them (Holly Hunter, Benicio Del Toro) have already won Oscars. But it does show that Academy voters really took a good hard look at all the films up for contention and nominated based on quality of the work, not the budget or number of theaters shown.

Another interesting aspect from the list of nominations was the extremely obvious omissions that many thought were a shoo-in. While actor Jude Law and supporting-actress Renée Zellweger were nominated for their work in the critically-acclaimed Civil War epic "Cold Mountain", the movie, director Anthony Minghella and lead actress Nicole Kidman all failed to get nominated. The same phenomenon occurred with "House of Sand and Fog" which saw both Sir Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo receive nods for Best Actor and Supporting Actress, yet did not receive nominations in the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Jennifer Connelly's work. And among the many nominations for "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World", lead actor Russell Crowe failed to receive a slot on the card.

Nominees in most categories are chosen by the respective branches of the 5,700-member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Actors vote for actors, directors for directors and so on. However all academy members are allowed to vote for best-picture nominees. Now that the nominees are revealed, the full academy is eligible to vote in all categories for the awards themselves.

The official Oscars website, Oscar.com, is going all out this year, featuring clips of nominees, as well as a contest where the person with the most correct predictions will win the ultimate home entertainment package that includes a 37" plasma screen TV, a home theater system/DVD player and a year's worth of free Blockbuster rentals.

ABC will broadcast the Oscars on Feb. 29 live from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. Billy Crystal returns as host after a four-year absence, his eighth time as Oscar master of ceremonies.

In the meantime, if you'd like to read the full list of nominees, click here.