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Best actor:

Richard Jenkins -  The Visitor

Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon

Sean Penn - Milk

Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
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Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married

Angelina Jolie - Changeling

Melissa Leo - Frozen River

Meryl Streep - Doubt

Kate Winslet - The Reader
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Best Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin - Milk

Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder

Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt

Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road
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Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams - Doubt

Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Viola Davis - Doubt

Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
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Best Animated Feature Film

BOLT

KUNG FU PANDA

WALL-E
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Best Art Direction

Changeling - James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo

The Dark Knight - Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando

The Duchess - Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway

Revolutionary Road - Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt
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Best Cinematography

Changeling - Tom Stern

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Claudio Miranda

The Dark Knight - Wally Pfister

The Reader - Chris Menges, Roger Deakins

Slumdog Millionaire - Anthony Dod Mantle
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Best Costume Design
Australia - Catherine Martin

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Jacqueline West

The Duchess - Michael O'Connor

Milk - Danny Glicker

Revolutionary Road - Albert Wolsky

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Best Director

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - David Fincher

Frost/Nixon - Ron Howard

Milk - Gus Van Sant

The Reader - Stephen Daldry

Slumdog Millionaire - Danny Boyle
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Best Feature Documentary

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) - Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath

Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog, Henry Kaiser

The Garden - Scott Hamilton Kennedy

Man on Wire - James Marsh, Simon Chinn

Trouble the Water - Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
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Best Documentary Short Film
The Conscience of Nhem En - Steven Okazaki

The Final Inch - Irene Taylor Brodsky, Tom Grant

Smile Pinki - Megan Mylan

The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306 - Adam Pertofsky, Margaret Hyde
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Best Editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

The Dark Knight - Lee Smith

Frost/Nixon - Mike Hill, Dan Hanley

Milk - Elliot Graham

Slumdog Millionaire - Chris Dickens
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Best Foreign Language Film

The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany

The Class - France

Departures - Japan

Austria - Revanche

Waltz with Bashir - Israel
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Best Makeup

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Greg Cannom

The Dark Knight - John Caglione, Jr., Conor O'Sullivan

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Mike Elizalde, Thom Floutz
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Best Music (Score)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Alexandre Desplat

Defiance - James Newton Howard

Milk - Danny Elfman

Slumdog Millionaire - A.R. Rahman

WALL-E - Thomas Newman
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Best Original Song

WALL-E - "Down to Earth"

Slumdog Millionaire - "Jai Ho"

Slumdog Millionaire - "O Saya"
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BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire
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Best Animated Short Film

La Maison de Petits Cubes - Kunio Kato

Lavatory - Lovestory - Konstantin Bronzit

Oktapodi - Emud Mokhberi, Thierry Marchand

Presto - Doug Sweetland

This Way Up - Alan Smith, Adam Foulkes
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Best Live Action Short Film

Auf der Strecke (On the Line) - Reto Caffi

Manon on the Asphalt - Elizabeth Marre, Olivier Pont

New Boy - Steph Green, Tamara Anghie

The Pig - Tivi Magnusson, Dorte Høgh

Spielzeugland (Toyland) - Jochen Alexander Freydank
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Best Sound Editing

The Dark Knight - Richard King

Iron Man - Frank Eulner, Christopher Boyes

Slumdog Millionaire - Tom Sayers

WALL-E - Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood

Wanted - Wylie Stateman
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Best Sound Mixing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten

The Dark Knight - Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick

Slumdog Millionaire - Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty

WALL-E - Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt

Wanted - Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt
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Best Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron

The Dark Knight - Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, Paul Franklin

Iron Man - John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, Shane Mahan
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Best Adapted Screenplay

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Eric Roth, Robin Swicord

Doubt - John Patrick Shanley

Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan

The Reader - David Hare

Slumdog Millionaire - Simon Beaufoy
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Best Original Screenplay

Frozen River - Courtney Hunt

Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh

In Bruges - Martin McDonagh

Milk - Dustin Lance Black

WALL-E - Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter
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I'm extremely happy that Heath Ledger and Robert Downey Jr. got nominated for The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder respectively.  But how in the heck they didn't nominate The Dark Knight for either Best Picture or Best Director really makes my brain hurt.   

Wow. Slim pickins this year.

I was quite surprised reading most of that  :buggedout:

But anyway, c'mon Mickey!  :thumbup:

I look at the list and feel a little sad inside and then angry a bit.  :hatred:  No nominatation for Best Picture for The Wrestler, Wall-E, and The Dark Knight?  No Best Director for Christopher Nolan?  Why aren't these being nominated?!  They were like the best pictures from last year, though Slumdog Millionare has this award in the bag now that Academy Awards Judges got rid of its biggest compedition.  Another thing, whoever heard of The Reader?  I've been checking reviews and I haven't seen enough good reviews or an overall positive score by all critics to even think it is worth a nomination, unlike... ahem... The Dark Knight.

This year was the year of amazing comic book films and animation movies that made us feel happy to be witnessing them.  So why hasn't the Academy Awards reconigize these movies and given the nominations that they deserve?  I've seen an uproar all over the Internet over these choices and films that were excluded.  Thankfully, Heath Ledger got nominateed for Best Supporting Actor.  :smile:  I bet you anything there would have been uproar from everyone who loved the film and critics alike if he wasn't nominated.

The thing that I hated about them implementing a Best Animated Feature category a while back was that it pretty much has made it impossible for an animated feature to ever win Best Picture again.  Beauty and the Beast was the last animated film to my knowledge that got a Best Picture nomination  so that is proof that it can be done.

I also agree that The Wrestler should have been nominated for Best Picture.  I have seen The Reader and besides Kate Winslet being excellent in it (in addition to looking drop dead gorgeous) there's really not that much else to it.

Also, while I greatly appreciate the craft and acting of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the movie itself kind of left me cold and I don't think  it's quite as good as a whole as a lot of other people do.

I have heard that rumor has well about The Best Animated Feature being a way so that animated films don't get nominated for Best Picture.  I never really believed that because I haven't seen a movie since Beauty and The Beast deserve the nomintation or deserved the award, outside of Spirited Away (That was an awesome movie).  However, with this decision not nominate Wall-E for best picture of the year, I now feel that same way you do about this Best Animated Feature.  I mean really!  Tons of critics have named Wall-E best film of the year in there list and it certainly had the most unique and original story all of the nominations and had the best storytelling of them all.

I agreee about Wall-E. It was the best movie that I saw this year with The Dark Knight being almost equal to it IMO.

I'm pullin' for him too.

I'll echo the animation category sentiments.  It's just stupid, especially since nearly all animated films these days are so mediocre, which is Wall-E deserved a Best Picture nod over some that were picked.  But it'll win its category of course.

Of the Best Picture nominees I've only seen Frost/Nixon.  It's a good film and all, but it's not that good.  The performances are excellent, especially Frank Langella, but there's not much else to it that rises to any great level of inspiration in my opinion.

As always the supporting categories excel, while the actor categories flail. I agree about both "Wall-E" and "The Dark Knight," from anyway you look at it, they were the two best films of the year.

The Academy Awards for any number of years have been a joke, especially in the best film category. But, a joke that was--at least--partially funny. This year's choices are no longer funny. I suppose most of us could care less on how to fix the problem, but if we could fix it, what would we do?

Of the five films nominated for best film, it is interesting to see who might have the inside track on winning. It might be "Milk," for two reasons. First, of the five pictures nominated, it is probably the critical favorite. And two, it might win in lieu of "Brokeback Mountain" losing to "Crash" from a couple of years ago.

Here's how this year's Best Pictures nominations should look like IMO:

The Wrestler

Frost/Nixon

The Dark Knight

Wall-E

Slumdog Millionaire

Wall-E not being nominated for best picture proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Academy Awards are completely irrelevant.

The Dark Knight, on the other hand, didn't deserve to get anywhere close to a best picture nomination.  It had a p**s-poor excuse of a script, it was full of gaping plot holes, it had poor (if any) character motivations, the action scenes were garbage, and there's always Batman's voice.  Yes, Batman's voice was that bad.  It would have brought down a much better film all by itself.  The very fact that Christopher Nolan would instruct Christian Bale to use it kicks him out of the running for best director.

Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart were the *only* things TDK had going for it.  IMHO, Ledger wasn't even that good.  Aaron Eckhart blew him out of the water, both as Harvey Dent and as Two-Face.

TDK was an explosion movie, period, and not even a very good one.

As I said, previously, each year I compile a list of the best films for the year, as chosen by the critics. From that standpoint, these are the five films, and which I agree, should have been chosen as the five best picture nominees.

"Wall-E"
"The Dark Knight"
"Milk"
"Slumdog Millionaire"
"Happy-go-lucky"

The Academy has shot itself in the foot in another way. Not only is "The Dark Knight," probably one of the best films of the year, it was also one of the most popular. And when you look at the TV ratings for the awards, the highest ratings have--almost always--been for a show in which a high grossing film has been a contender for best picture, such as "Titantic" or "The Return of the King." By choosing the films that they did, I can see the TV ratings for this year's show, being one of the lowest in several years.

Not choosing "The Dark Knight" does do one thing, though. It may increase Heath Ledger's chance of winning. If you look at the previous nominees, the Academy just hates to give an award to a dead person. But if the opinion is that "The Dark Knight" got "screwed" over, it may increase the sympathy vote for Ledger.

I feel much the same way, though I'm admittedly less warm to the performances of Ledger and Eckhart.

I'm getting infinitely tired of all this talk about how much the film is getting cheated out of Best Picture when, really, it deserves that award about as much as Smokin' Aces would've deserved it.

Indeed TDK was a mediocre popcorn film but it being up for any Oscar is cool with me.  This is because 90% of the movies nominated for any type of award in the past 10 years seem to be mostly pale and lifeless dramas.  All of which I have no interest in seeing. 

The Academy would seem to have a schizoid attitude, when it comes to animated films. They see nothing wrong with placing "Slumdog Millionaire" in the category of
Best Picture, even though . . .

(a) It is a joint U.S./U.K. production, which makes it in part, a foreign film. And . . .

(b) It is in both English and Hindi, which it in part, makes it a foreign language film, but . . .

"Wall-E" which is totally an U.S. production and totally in English is relegated to Best Animated Film.

And to add to the confusion, "Waltz with Bashir," which is animated film from Israel, is placed in Best Foreign Language Film, which is the foreign equivalent of Best Picture, instead of Best Animated Film.

If I were the people responsible for "Slumdog Millionaire," I would have pushed for Best Foreign Language Film, where it is almost assured of winning an Oscar, instead of Best Picture. Though, apparently, at this moment, it is the odds on film to win the Oscar as Best Picture.

I'll also add, if the public was voting by ticket sales, the winner of Best Picture would be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," the only film--so far--among the entries that have grossed over a $100 million at the box office. The other four films nominated, combine gross--so far--have yet to gross a $100 million.

I am still bitter towards the oscars for moving their date from late march to february. They're trying too hard to ride the coattales of the golden globe and SAG awards but that short time period doens't give me enough time to watch all the movies I want to see before the awards.

Same bastards who decided to break up the olympics to every 2 years i'm sure

Personally, maybe it's just me, but I just flat-out hate the Oscars. Strikes me as just a big Hollywood glitterati circle jerk where the rich/pretty/pretentious douche bags get all dressed up in their best "look at meeee!!!!" outfits and give themselves all a big pat on the back and compliment each other on how rich/pretty/pretentious they are. I think of it all as just a snobby, self-important celebration of ego-stroking bologna. Maybe that's just me, but I effin' hate the Oscars. Call me harsh. Whatever.

I think you described it better than I ever could. 

I liked the oscars when joan rivers did the pre-show. The celebrities dreaded the interviews with her on the red carpet because she would say ANYTHING.

To sarah jessica parker "Oh turn around let me see that dress. Love it. But my dear I have to say, what the hell where you thinking when you put on those shoes?"

And she loved to look at engagement rings. I remember her saying to kevin costners fiance "YOu should be ASHAMED Of yourself. You deserve more than that honey"

I hope Mickey Rourke takes it and I'll be happy if Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) and Heath Ledger win too.  :smile:

Okay, I've been pulling for Mickey for a while. Not because I've seen The Wrestler (although I could tell as soon as I saw the trailer that it's the kind of movie I'd love) but because it's really the only movie up there being nominated for Best Actor that doesn't strike me as pretentious tripe. Also, I'm a big Rourke fan to begin with, and I think he deserves the award (he's certainly one of the best actors out there period, in my opinion).

But, anyway, now I'm gonna be rootin' for him even harder, as I finally got to see The Wrestler last night. Truly an awesome (and I mean that in that in the strictest sense, in that it filled me with awe) picture. As we speak, I'm typing up a review of it right now.

Never been a fan of awards in general, doesn't matter if it's for movies or anything else. There's very little objectivity, and a whole lot of politics, emotions and personal bias. We've all seen choices that leave us going "huh?" and this is why.

I must say the Academy Awards have gotten a little more inclusive when it comes to sci-fi, action, comedy, etc., but there is still a lot of bias toward "important" films. And some bias against popular films. There was a time when The Dark Knight would have been relegated to technical awards - best sound editing or some such thing. That's improved, but snobbery is still the rule. Pleasing the customers is not necessarily a factor in pleasing the industry.

I think this is what makes the Oscars not just irrelevant to me, but also uninteresting. It's not just the movies that get nominated year after year that I have no interest in seeing, but the ones I've never even heard of until everyone in the industry is touting them as the year's best. Maybe they are. I think it's great that smaller movies get some attention, but why should I root for them when I know nothing about them?

And count me as another person who was not blown away by Heath Ledger's performance. He was very good, but I have to question whether he would have gotten as much attention and praise had it not been for his tragic death.

That's the problem with the Oscars. You don't know the reasons for the choices. Nobody has to defend them. And then the award itself is held up as an argument for the quality of the film.

I hate when people say he might have or only gotten nominated because he died or he only has praise because of his death.  That's not the case.  He got the nomination and got the praise because his performance was great and it happened to be better than most every other film in 2008, which is why he was nominated.  Plus, his performance was not only impressive, it made us forget than he died and made us forget that he was even Heath Ledger.  I mean really, I watched the movie and forgot who he was, litterally thought I was looking at the Joker.  Almost all movies you watch, you instantly see someone you know and just think well, there he or she is playing a part in the movie.  Not with him.

Well I'm on the topic, I dislike it when people say the only thing that was good about the film or was memorable was his performance.  No, that's not what only rememberable.  The big rig flip, the final confrontation with Two-Face, the first appearance of the bat-pod, when Batman glides into that guy's office in China, when the body smashes against the window, or when Batman tries to rescue everyone who were dressed to look like the bad guys.  I mean, those are just as rememberable as any scene with the Joker.  I mean, come on, that's like saying the only thing that is rememberable about Peter Jackson's King Kong was King Kong himself.  I remember the dinosaurs in that film more than King Kong.

Back on the topic of Oscars, I'm still ticked off that Wall-E, The Dark Knight, The Wrestler, and Revolutionary Road were rejected for awards that they deserved.  That is all.

Yay! Mr. Rourke is giving his BAFTA acceptance speech for best actor as I type.....   :smile:

"In Bruges" should have been up for Best Picture, and all 3 actors -- Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, and Brendan Gleason should have gotten acting nods as well.

I'll be rooting for it for "Best Original Screenplay" then . . .

peter johnson/denny disappointed