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The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominees for the 71st Golden Globes this morning and while they spread the love to all the major motion picture studios, as usual, there were significantly more surprises than had been expected.

Fox Searchlight’s “12 Years A Slave” and Sony Pictures’ “American Hustle” led all films with 7 nominations each.  “12 Years A Slave” landed picture – drama, director (Steve McQueen), lead actor – drama (Chiwetel Ejifor), supporting actor (Michael Fassbender), supporting actress (Lupita Nyong’o), screenplay (John Ridley) and original score (Hans Zimmer) nominations.  “Hustle” took best picture – comedy or musical, director (David O. Russell), screenplay (Russell), actress – comedy or musical (Amy Adams), actor – comedy or musical (Christian Bale), supporting actor – comedy or musical (Bradley Cooper) and supporting actress – comedy or musical (Jennifer Lawrence).

The remaining best picture nominations on the drama side include “Gravity,” “Philomena,” “Captain Phillips” and, certainly a surprise for Universal Pictures, Ron Howard’s “Rush.”  The comedy or musical field is rounded out by Spike Jonze’s “Her,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” and the Coen Bros.’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

Notable omissions from the best picture fields included “August: Osage County” in the comedy or musical and, shockingly, “Saving Mr. Banks” in the drama category.  Word had leaked that the HFPA were not fans of “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” so missing a best picture – drama nomination was expected. The Weinstein Company didn’t believe, however, that the film’s venerable Oprah Winfrey would miss the supporting actress cut. The other supporting actress honorees include Julia Roberts (“August: Osage County”), June Squibb (“Nebraska”), Sally Hawkins (“Blue Jasmine”) and the aforementioned Lawrence.

Independent film was somewhat ignored by the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations on Wednesday, but the HFPA rectified that a bit by including “Francis Ha’s” Greta Gerwig and “Before Midnight’s” Julie Delpy in the lead actress comedy or musical field. The aforementioned Adams, “August’s” Meryl Streep and “Enough Said’s” Julia Louis-Dreyfus rounded out the field. Dreyfus also earned a nomination on the television side for her work on HBO’s “Veep.”

While the Coen Bros., Scorsese, and Spike Jonze were effectively snubbed, a very competitive directing category includes McQueen, Russell, “Gravity’s” Alfonso Cuaron, “Nebraska’s” Alexander Payne and “Captain Phillips” helmer Paul Greengrass. Russell and Cuaron also earned screenplay nominations alongside Jonze for “Her,” Steve Coogan for “Philomena,” Ridley for “12 Years A Slave” and Bob Nelson for “Nebraska.”

The HFPA’s foreign language film nominees will make most high brow critics very pleased.  Cannes winner “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The Hunt,” “The Past,” “The Great Beauty” and “The Wind Rises” round out the field.  Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, the animated “Wind Rises” was not eligible for best animated film, but the HFPA found room for it in foreign language instead.  Only three films made the animated feature cut: Dreamworks Animations’ “The Croods,” Universal Pictures’ “Despicable Me 2” and Walt Disney Animation’s “Frozen.”

For a complete list of all the 2014 Golden Globes nominations including the television categories, click here.

The 71st Golden Globes will be held on Sunday, Jan. 12 and broadcast live at 5 PM PST, 8 PM EST on NBC.