For Clint Eastwood, this year's Oscar race is a stunning case of deja vu.

Back in 1993, Eastwood's dark, brooding western Unforgiven earned him nominations for best picture, best director and best actor.

He's competing in the same three categories this year with his dark, brooding boxing film Million Dollar Baby.

As he was 12 years ago, Eastwood, 74, is the front runner for this year's directing Oscar.

Once again, he goes into the competition with the blessing of the directors guild, which awarded him its top honour for his strong, but unobtrusive work on Million Dollar Baby.

He also has this year's Golden Globe for best director.

Despite some strong competition, Eastwood will be named best director for Million Dollar Baby as he was for Unforgiven in 1993.

Eastwood's genius in Million Dollar Baby is that he was able to say so much about friendship, longing, estrangement, dreams, despair and hope by doing so little.

His direction is a marvel of economy and clarity and he manages to infuse humour into a story overflowing with heart-wrenching pathos.

Eastwood should have been named best director last year for his stellar work on Mystic River. Instead, the Academy had to recognize Peter Jackson's work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Eastwood's major competition for this award comes from Martin Scorsese, 62, who crafted the sprawling Howard Hughes bio-pic The Aviator.

This is the kind of energetic, showy filmmaking Hollywood loves to recognize.

Scorsese is a legendary genius who keeps missing out on an honour which should have been his in 1980 when his direction on Raging Bull lost to Robert Redford for Ordinary People and again in 1990 when GoodFellas was overlooked in favour of Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves.

Alexander Payne, 43, is certainly the critics' darling this year for directing the bittersweet comedy Sideways. He is getting the same kind of adulation Sofia Coppola received last year for Lost In Translation.

Like Coppola, Payne will be rewarded with an Oscar for his screenplay rather than his direction.

Taylor Hackford, 60, and Mike Leigh, 61, are not really in competition. Hackford's Ray was a minor box-office hit and yielded a tour de force performance from Jamie Foxx but Hackford's direction is pedestrian at the best. Hackford's spot should have gone to any number of more worthy directors including Marc Forster for Finding Neverland, Pedro Almodovar for Bad Education, Yimou Zhang for House of Flying Daggers.

SHOULD AND WILL WIN

BEST DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby