The Academy Awards nominations were announced Thursday morning, and usually there’s something mind-boggling and horrible to talk about, but not this time. Instead, the dawn greeted us with a fairly plausible list — a reasonable response to a good year in movies — and an improvement over most of the critics’ lists that have been coming out.

There were small surprises, not all good. Tom Hanks ("Captain Phillips") was excluded from best actor, and he shouldn’t have been, but that was a crowded category and someone was going to get squeezed out. (Less of a surprise: Robert Redford for "All is Lost" wasn’t nominated, either.) In the best actress category, Meryl Streep was nominated for one of her worst performances, in "August: Osage County," but after so much great work you can forgive the academy a little Streep derangement syndrome.

From here, the field looks much the way it did after the Golden Globes. Three films are in contention for best picture: "American Hustle" and "Gravity," which both received 10 nominations, and "12 Years a Slave," which received nine. If there’s a fourth to be included among the favorites, it’s Martin Scorsese’s "The Wolf of Wall Street," a pleasant surprise in that so much of the publicity since its release has been unfairly negative — and the academy has never been noted for its courage.

But "The Wolf of Wall Street" landed five big nominations, including best director (Scorsese, his eighth), supporting actor (Jonah Hill) and adapted screenplay (Terence Winter). Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated for best actor, said he felt vindicated for what he said is clearly a cautionary tale of greed and hedonism.

"To be recognized like this and to see that there were enough people out there who said, ‘Look, we get what this film’ — not what it’s trying to say, but what it’s trying to reflect," DiCaprio said. "Nobody wants to be misunderstood."

At this point, it’s beginning to look like "Gravity" may have the edge. It constitutes what is really the first artistic use of 3-D, so it will have a special appeal to voters in the technical divisions, and it’s not merely a technical achievement (unlike, say, "Avatar"). I’d rather see the more daring "Wolf of Wall Street" or "American Hustle" get the highest honor, but "Gravity" would be a respectable winner.

Best actor will be interesting, but this is probably a race among DiCaprio, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew McConaughey, with McConaughey having the advantage.

Historically, the academy has usually given its best actress award to a woman age 35 or under being nominated for the first time. But this year, the youngest nominee is 39 (Amy Adams) and all have been nominated before. This is the only category about which there’s almost no suspense. The award is going to Cate Blanchett for "Blue Jasmine," as well it should.

In the strong supporting actor category, the big surprise — a happy one — is the inclusion of Jonah Hill for "The Wolf of Wall Street." I’d like to see Michael Fassbender take it, though Jared Leto probably will win.

A notable omission in the supporting actor category is the late James Gandolfini in "Enough Said," but then, the Academy has been eschewing sentimental nominations and choices in recent years.

Supporting actress will have some robust competition, with Sally Hawkins ("Blue Jasmine"), Jennifer Lawrence ("American Hustle"), Lupita Nyong’o ("12 Years a Slave") and June Squibb ("Nebraska") going head to head. I’d give it to Squibb, but Lawrence was pretty remarkable, too, and I expect that she’ll win it.

Foreign film used to be the hardest to predict, because only people who saw all five films at academy screenings could vote. Not anymore. Now everyone is on the honor system and can vote the way they like. This makes it most likely that the most well-known of the five, Italy’s "The Great Beauty," will win against "The Broken Circle Breakdown" (Belgium), "The Hunt" (Denmark), "The Missing Picture" (Cambodia) and "Omar" (Palestine).

"Blue is the Warmest Color" wasn’t nominated because it wasn’t eligible. It was released in its home country, France, on Oct. 9, and the academy’s cutoff in this category is Sept. 30. Oddly, it was eligible for best picture and for the acting categories — Adele Exarchopoulos should have had the slot that went to Streep — but it can’t be nominated for best foreign film until 2015.

But the academy has no good excuse for not nominating "The Past," by Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, one of the best films released last year. It wasn’t even on the short list.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.