A furry, eight foot tall, 800lb monster and a jolly green ogre are set to upstage the familiar red carpet parade of actresses in flesh-revealing designer dresses and tuxedo-wearing actors at this year's Academy Awards ceremony.

These outsize creatures are the computer-generated stars of the two main contenders hoping to win the first Oscar for best animated feature. The fight for top honours will pit Walt Disney studios against Dreamworks, whose bosses include ex-Mickey Mouse factory supremo Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Both companies have animated box office heavyweights in the Oscar ring. From Dreamworks comes Shrek, a gloriously twisted fairy tale about an ogre, a kung fu fighting princess and an evil prince. Disney has Monsters Inc, courtesy of Toy Story makers Pixar. Any other films in the new category will be there just to make up the numbers.

The 74th Academy Awards ceremony itself has a new home - the 3,300-seat Kodak Theatre, part of the newly-constructed Hollywood & Highland complex on Hollywood Boulevard. A pity, then, that the 2002 Oscar race seems a bit on the slow side with few obvious contenders emerging as potential winners.

The US box office may have taken a record $8.38bn this year, but the turn-of-the-year game of second guessing Oscar voters is more difficult than usual.

The Golden Globe nominations always provide a useful indication of who might figure in Oscar's list, as we await the dozens of critics' awards handed out in the coming months. Otherwise you need to be a cross between Mystic Meg and the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter to predict the outcome. But here goes:

BEST PICTURE/BEST DIRECTOR

The film directed by the best director doesn't always win best picture, or vice versa, but the same half-dozen movies will be highlighted in both categories.

After the effects-crazy The Grinch, director Ron Howard turns serious with A Beautiful Mind, based on the life of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. It's probably his best shot yet at an Oscar, thanks in the main to a star performance from Russell Crowe, which could win him a second statuette to add to the one he took home last year for Gladiator.

Ridley Scott, the director of that Roman circus, saw his military movie Black Hawk Down rushed out to qualify for the nominations. The battle scenes, based on a real-life incident involving the US in Somalia in the 1990s, are stunningly staged, but the lack of characterisation and the confusion of warfare may leave audiences, as well as Oscar voters, unhappy.

New Zealand director Peter Jackson deserves a nod from Hollywood for The Fellowship Of The Rings, the first in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, in which he does a brilliant and seamless job of combining impressive special effects with Tolkien's wizards and hobbits.

Australian maestro Baz Luhrmann's daring musical extravaganza Moulin Rouge should feature in both director and picture categories, although its in-your-face style might deter older voters. Michael Mann looks set to be rewarded for his biopic Ali, as does star Will Smith as he throws off his jokey image, builds up his muscles and plays the boxing champion formerly known as Cassius Clay.

Those with outside chances of reward include Christopher Nolan, whose puzzler Memento has impressed, and former Royal National Theatre director Richard Eyre with Iris, the story of the romance between writer Iris Murdoch and John Bailey. The US family drama In The Bedroom may also benefit from good reviews and Golden Globe nominations.

BEST ACTOR

Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) and Will Smith (Ali) are dead certs for nominations as their roles contain vital Oscar ingredients - they're real people, the actors have changed themselves physically, Crowe's character suffers from schizophrenia (illness equals awards in Hollywood) and Ali is a much-loved legend.

Likely to get a look in are previous best actor winner Kevin Spacey, not as an alien in K-Pax (whose pre-release Oscar buzz faded once audiences saw it) but for The Shipping News.

Denzel Washington has been much praised for playing against type, as a corrupt policeman, in Training Day. Playing a mentally-challenged character is an advantage come Oscar-time, so Sean Penn in I Am Sam must be in there with a chance.

Britain's Tom Wilkinson, for In The Bedroom, and Billy Bob Thornton, from the Coen Brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There, stand outside chances of nominations. But Tom Cruise (three nominations, no wins) and Jim Carrey (unjustly ignored for The Truman Show) needn't bother preparing acceptance speeches. The former's Vanilla Sky received mixed reviews and the latter's The Majestic flopped at the box office.

BEST ACTRESS

Leading the field is Nicole Kidman with a double whammy - her star turn as a doomed courtesan in Moulin Rouge and a spooked mother in supernatural thriller The Others. She's won Golden Globe nods for both performances, in the drama and the musical/comedy categories.

Expect competition from Sissy Spacek, making a comeback in In The Bedroom, and Julianne Moore, for The Shipping News. Cate Blanchet has a Golden Globe chance for Bandits, but Oscar voters may favour her war heroine in Charlotte Gray.

Outside chances include Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, as the mother who'll do anything to protect her son, in The Deep End, and Renee Zellwegger, who put on a British accent and big knickers to pen Bridget Jones's Diary.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

American critics were much taken with the villainous turn in British gangster thriller Sexy Beast by newly-knighted Ben Kingsley, a best actor as Gandhi.

Jon Voight could earn recognition, although he's almost unrecognisable beneath the prosthetics make-up, as sportscaster Howard Cosell in Ali. The always-excellent Gene Hackman impressed in the comedy The Royal Tenenbaums.

British hopes rest with Jim Broadbent, boasting a double as the nightclub manager (whose rendition of Madonna's Like A Virgin was a showstopper) in Moulin Rouge and the devoted husband in Iris.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Brits Judi Dench and Kate Winslet could find themselves competing against each other after playing the same role. Winslet plays the young Iris Murdoch and Dench, an Oscar-winner for Shakespeare In Love, the older Murdoch in Iris. The Golden Globes have got round this by putting up Dench for best actress and Winslet for best supporting actress. Dench could also be nominated for The Shipping News.

Another previous winner and British dame, Maggie Smith, has a shot at an Oscar for either Gosford Park or Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone.

Golden Globe nominee Cameron Diaz is likely to add an Oscar nod for Vanilla Sky, as could Jennifer Connelly as the disturbed mathematician's wife in A Beautiful Mind.

* The Orange British Academy Awards take place on February 24 and the Academy Awards ceremony is on March 24.