For years, the Oscar nominations have come wrapped in the same predictable package: A slew of shoo-in acting nods with one or two surprises, topped with five Best Picture nominees that were obvious in November.

And then Academy President Sid Gannis and actress Salma Hayek stepped up to the podium Tuesday morning to announce this year’s crop of nominees — and, incidentally, drop an A-bomb.

It was an uncannily exhilarating few minutes that almost felt too dramatic to be true. First, Gannis and Hayek ran through the acting nominations, and 18 out of 20 went as major prognosticators expected. Only The Departed’s Mark Wahlberg, who one-upped Jack Nicholson for a supporting actor nod, raised any eyebrows. Then the Best Director nods delivered the first blow: The nomination of United 93’s Paul Greengrass in the expected place of Dreamgirls director Bill Condon.

But as Hayek started into the Best Picture nominees, announcing Babel with choked-back tears of pride for the film’s Mexican creators and then moving on to The Departed, The Big One came out of left field. Clint Eastwood’s Japanese-language Letters from Iwo Jima was announced next, and that meant Dreamgirls was nowhere to be found.

The film’s shutout from the major Oscar nods is one of the biggest jaw-droppers in recent Academy Awards history. For almost seven months, Dreamgirls rode a rapturous wave of buzz and coverage on the nightly entertainment news that would exhaust Lindsay Lohan.

A number of conspiracy theories are likely to be tossed about before the awards air Feb. 25, but the key to the Dreamgirls slight might lie in an event that happened eight months ago.

At France’s Cannes Film Festival in May 2006, the film’s stars and creators gathered to present 20 minutes of the movie. From Cannes, critic Roger Ebert wrote that “the theory is that after seeing 20 minutes from the movie I will write a story saying I can’t wait … to see the rest of it,” also adding that “those were 20 terrific minutes.” Dreamgirls got what it wanted from Ebert and countless others, but in late December, the salivating critics got this: 100 other minutes with less than expected to rave about.

With this unexpectedly insightful and promising move from the Academy, the Best Picture race is now the most unpredictable it has been in at least five years. In short, not a single one of the five nominees is poised higher than the others.

So now it’s time to get over Dreamgirls, and let the games begin.