Steven Soderbergh, nominated just once before for his original screenplay of sex, lies and videotape in 1989, has swiftly and effortlessly assumed the mantle of America's most intelligent film-maker with a string of entertaining and provocative films.

But while he's won every critics' award going for Erin Brockovich and Traffic this year - and scored two Golden Globe nominations in the same category - it is highly unlikely that Soderbergh will win two Oscar nominations for Best Director. No film-maker has achieved that feat since 1938, when Michael Curtiz snagged two for Angels With Dirty Faces and Four Daughters. Not even Francis Ford Coppola could manage the double in 1974, even though his two films, The Conversation and The Godfather - Part II, won Best Picture nominations. He won that year for the latter.

That said, Academy voters might consider the films different enough to give the brilliant film-maker separate nominations, for they are clearly two of the best directed films of the year. Soderbergh turns the classic true story of underdog crusader Erin Brockovich into a far grittier, less compromising film than Hollywood would conventionally deliver. Working closely with his leading actor Julia Roberts, Soderbergh spikes the film and the character with rough edges. His shooting style is vivid and unglamorous, his Erin likewise.

It would certainly raise many an eyebrow if he failed to get nominated for Traffic, now widely acknowledged by critics as the year's best film. Soderbergh himself operated the camera for 99% of this bold and absorbing study of the drugs world. Expertly blending three different plot-lines shot in different grains and hues, the director creates a richly textured work as epic in scale and close to truth as the best of 70s cinema.

While it is clearly Soderbergh's year, he does run the risk of splitting his own vote, especially if he gets two nominations. There are a handful of competitors who could pose him a serious threat. First among those is Taiwan's Ang Lee, whose breathtaking romantic action movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of the year's most beloved.

Remarkably, Lee has never been nominated in the director category despite exemplary work in Sense And Sensibility (1995) and The Ice Storm (1997). He should surely snag a nomination this year. Not only does he create some of the most eye-popping fight scenes in recent memory; he makes them an integral part of a passionate dramatic story. The result is screen magic.

Ridley Scott has been nominated once before, for Thelma And Louise in 1991. He is sure to get a second nomination for Gladiator. The unique reinvention of the Roman epic spectacularly avoided campness, achieving the sort of serious grandeur (with a long running time) beloved by Academy voters - witness director wins for Mel Gibson for Braveheart, Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves and Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List.

Also in the category of "important" work is Cast Away, the latest movie by Robert Zemeckis to take a stab at answering the great questions of life. While it never answers much, the film is probably Zemeckis' best work to date. The scenes with Tom Hanks' lead character on the desert island are devoid of the director's usual polish, slick special effects or syrupy score - elements which creep in when he is back in civilisation.

Zemeckis' popularity cannot be underestimated in the eyes of voters. He's already won for his awkward Forrest Gump in 1994, although that had more to do with the film's phenomenal box office success. Cast Away, already a blockbuster with audiences, could do the same again.

Gus Van Sant was nominated in 1997 for his crowd-pleasing drama Good Will Hunting and he revisits similar themes in Finding Forrester. In both cases, Van Sant was brought in after the script had been in development for some time and in both he managed to make the film his own. In Finding Forrester particularly, he converts what is essentially a conventional "unlikely friendship" tale into a sly and unsentimental character study. He speeds over the formulaic parts of the plot, instead relishing the characters and their peculiar needs.

Many other directors produced engaging work in 2000, but Academy voters certainly go for a type. Stephen Daldry, the first time British director, showed impressive cinematic flair with his much-liked Billy Elliot. The film could win him a slot like his fellow Brit Sam Mendes last year.

Another candidate is artist-cum-film-maker Julian Schnabel, whose Before Night Falls was not only a visual feast but a compelling, moving true-life story. Lasse Hallstrom, whose sentimental treatment of The Cider House Rules won him a director nomination last year, is again a contender this year for Chocolat. The perfectly judged delicacy which could well be to the taste of older voters.

Similarly, Istvan Szabo's Sunshine impressed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association enough to win him a Golden Globe nomination. The 180-minute saga of Hungarian Jewry is just the type of epic with which the Academy associates quality.

Some who will probably remain unsung this year will nevertheless be remembered. Brit Terence Davies worked wonders with his first traditional narrative, an intense adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth. Darren Aronofksy almost swallows the viewer into his hypnotic Requiem For A Dream, creating a startling visual language to evoke the horrors of Hubert Selby Jr's novel.

Lars von Trier daringly subverted the traditional musical with Dancer In The Dark, shooting his dramatic scenes with free-wheeling handheld camera and his musical numbers with scores of fixed cameras. Stage veteran Kenneth Lonergan made an audacious film directing debut with You Can Count On Me, which may have had the look of a small-screen film but had the intelligence and poignancy of the best cinema. Curtis Hanson, a nominee in 1997 for LA Confidential (he won a screenplay adaptation prize), did a subtle and accomplished job on the low-key drama Wonder Boys. The picture will probably be too subtle for voters, who tend to opt for bombast and overt style over unadorned, generous direction.

If Ang Lee breaks the mould and wins a popular Best Director nod, that still leaves some of the best work of the year from other countries out in the cold. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu deserves a long future, if not multiple awards, for his extraordinary Amores Perros. Edward Yang proves yet again that he is a master of the medium with Yi-Yi, while Liv Ullmann finally came of age as a director with her vast wrenching tale of infidelity Faithless. But not every great director can qualify; this is the American Academy Awards after all.