81st Academy Award Nominations
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire were the big leaders at the announcement of this year’s Academy Awards, receiving 13 and 10 nominations, respectively.
Both films are up for the Best Picture award, as well as director and screenplay honors, and will compete for the top honor against Milk, which received eight nominations, and Frost/Nixon and The Reader, both of which were nominated for five awards. The Reader, a holocaust drama starring Kate Winslet, was the surprise of the announcements, snagging a Best Picture nod (seemingly away from The Dark Knight) as well as director, adapted screenplay and Best Actress for Winslet. It had been widely speculated that Winslet would be submitted in the supporting actress category for The Reader and lead actress for Revolutionary Road (which only nabbed three nominations), as she was at the Golden Globes, where she won for both films. The other big surprise of the nominations was the absence of The Dark Knight from any major categories save an expected Best Supporting Actor nod for Heath Ledger, though the box office hit did get eight nominations in all, mostly in technical categories.
Brad Pitt received his second Oscar nomination for Benjamin Button, and will go up in the Best Actor category opposite Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk) and Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). Winslet will compete opposite two actresses from independent films, Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River), and two previous winners, Angelina Jolie (Changeling) and Meryl Streep (Doubt), who received her 15th nomination. The supporting nominations were pretty much as expected, with the surprise of Michael Shannon up for Revolutionary Road; other supporting actor nominees include Ledger, Josh Brolin (Milk), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), and Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder). Doubt also received two supporting actress nominations for Amy Adams and Viola Davis; the other contenders are Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Taraji P. Henson (Benjamin Button) and Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler). In what’s usually a rare feat, all five Best Picture nominees had corresponding director nods. And the Best Animated Feature nominees were Bolt, Kung Fu Panda and WALL-E (which received six nominations overall, including original screenplay); expected animated nominee Waltz with Bashir was left out of that race, but the Israeli film did receive a nomination for Best Foreign Language film, as did The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany), The Class (France), Departures (Japan) and Revanche (Austria).
Comments(47)
Nice read, seen some of those movies, and have still a few to see
The Dark Knight is out !!!then me 2…haven't seen curious case of Benjamin Button But Still the Dark knight isn't in…Now im not really intrested
So now everything is lined up for that sickening sentimental moment when Heath Ledger gets that Oscar post mortem. Yuk!
Most overrated performance this year.
i enjoyed Dark Knight it's a fun flick but it's not much than dumb teen batman movie with the worst gotham vision ever. it is just nominated because of the dead guy. Dark Knight is not even possible to be compared with most of the other great movies nominated.
hey i was wondering if you could upload the movie: "i can't think straight"
awesome site btw!!
yea…waiting to finish off a few more…
the wait begins!
BIG SHAME TO THE ACADEMY for not including THE DARK KNIGHT to any major categories. SHAME AGAIN ON THEM.
booowwwww
boowwwwwwww
btw…has anyone seen "frozen river"…..
In teh title is Oscar nominations 2008, and should be 2009 ;P
The oscar crew didn't get enough of a cashpile from the dark knight crew, which is why it didn't get nominated. Simple.
I don't care what anyone says, The Dark Knight was not just some
popcorn movie for the summer, it was an intelligent film, but because the lead character is in a costume resembling a rodent, the academy decides to snub it. I'll bet they feel they were forced to nominate Ledger on account of his death. It's too bad these films awards aren't based on box office, but on stupid stuffed shirt pompousness, or the whole show would be a lot more entertaining.
dark knight gave a refreshing change to the normal superhero film crap
benjamin button was awesome, I think that movie will move alot of people
kate winslet? jeez how hard is it to play someone shallow and cold-blooded. Di Carpio did a better job in Revolutionary Road at least.
Jesus christ people, what's a dead guy gonna do with an oscar?
thx for the list, what's the version of Benjamin Button to get? one without the glitches preferably
Dark Knight was definitly the most entertaining movie I've seen this year. It was clever, funny, dark, exciting, disturbing and full of action. The performance of Heath Ledger can never be called overrated. Best performance of the year in my opinion.
The score was also great!
I hope WALL-E gets at least 1
Wow! Once again it feels good to realize that I was absolutely right betting on "Slumdog" even when most folks didn't even see it. It makes me laugh when I remember the silly negative replies after I'd expressed my support for it in 2 of my fav sceneblogs. I thanx RLSLog crew once again for being the first to post "Slumdog" releases when they were pre-d.
@Jism you sound almost like the real Joker (if he's ever to exist) kinda silly but undeniably right. Dark Knight indeed was a good movie – whether it gets an Oscar or not is not gonna change that fact. It will always be considered as a standard setter for movie adaptations of comic books.
i hope for wall-e , the wrestler and baader meinhof komplex as foreign
Dear Dark Knight,
We will NEVER acknowledge a film involving a guy in a costume as being worthy of greatness.
Next time, try featuring a talking pig or maybe some Holocaust victims.
Sincerely and F you,
The Academy
gosh when's Rachel Getting Married ever gonna get leaked.
Im so sick of people relating heath ledger's death to succes of The Dark Knight and calling it overrated. If it was a crap movie with a good actor people wouldnt still be talking about that movie. The Dark Knight was awesome as f*ck and its just a coincidence the greatest movie of this year had one of its actors die. Do you really think people enjoy the movie more because the guy is dead ? So naive.
suprised Iron Man was in best visual and Hellboy II wasnt :s
cool, austria could make it two in a row
Penelope Cruz??? WORST actress in film industry, I don't know how MANY pprriks has suckked to get there!!!
This AWARDS dont mean NOTHING from today!! Real Crap!
brrrrrr
Nice sum up. Thanks a lot.
My only hope goes to the best supporting actor for Heath Ledger. May he rest in peace.
Forgot To mention Dark Knight's Soundtrack which was breathtaking…
The Dark Knight is nominated for 8 Oscars!!!!!
Well deserved in my opinion!
Academy Guy #1: "Maybe we should nominate The Dark Knight"
Academy Guy #2: "Didn't that movie take like $160m the first weekend, and nearly a billion dollars in total, WHILE getting unanimously fantastic reviews as well?"
Academy Guy #1: Yeah, good point – something that popular can't POSSIBLY be good, otherwise what's the point in us?
Absolute joke not to nominate The Dark Knight.
@9: It's kind of a tricky thing because the nominations cover the films released in 2008, even though they're announced and the ceremony is in 2009. I changed the title to help clarify a little.
And personally, I'm really happy about most of the awards. I would've liked to see more love for The Wrestler and WALL-E, but with Shannon and Jenkins getting noms, I'm happy.
first get one thing straight heaths performance was touted to be brilliant before his untimely death,as for batman not being nominated well,these type of movies some years just don't get the big awards,Kate blanchett was great in the ccobb and didn't get a mention ah well
A R Rahman gets nominated for original score for Slumdog Millionaire.
This is awesome news.The musical genius is finally getting some international recognition.
Jai Ho and O Saya are also nominated for best original song.
I'm sure Rahman will win!JAI HO A R Rahman!!
Kate Winslet really deserves it, I hope she wins Best Actress in a leading role and Brad Pitt for the best actor! I can't wait.
Another year of CRAP movies, nothing exciting this year as well, its like a race to create the most boring movie and the more boring it is the greater chance you have to win.
@33: Well, we *did* get Speed Racer this year :p.
J/k. Anyways, personally I don't see a problem rooting for the dead guy. Why so hateful?
Though it's a shame that in my humble opinion The Dark Knight is nominated in any of the major categories, this doesn't surprise me one bit. The Academy always focuses on non-blockbuster-popcorn-action films, like Benjamin Button and Slumdog.
Don't get me wrong, those films are excellent and each one deserves being best picture of the year, but why not include batman's most realistic, dark and performance wise best appearance on the big screen, just because the movie was widely popular on a variety of different age groups.
99% sure that Heath Ledger's performance and death (although excellent but not Godly) will bring the only major Oscar to Christopher Nolan's masterpiece yet.
All in all, since early 2008 and so far we had an amazing movie year and we'll hope for an even better in 2009.
LOL @ 24 Manalo. Dude I second that. She aint even that pretty. I guess being Salma Hayek's lesbian lover gets you some places (Pun intended). Have you watched Elgy? lols.
But seriously, who chooses those movies? 8000 monkeys? Dark Knight ALL THE WAY.
"The other big surprise of the nominations was the absence of The Dark Knight from any major categories"
That's not really a surprise
Now I wonder why the Miyazaki animation…Ponyo on the cliff by the sea wasn't considered as an animation nominee….
come on…if Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda and BOLT has made it….why couldn't they include ponyo….
I agree that the animation did not keep up to the standards of previous ghibli animations…but the movie stripped off its ghibli nomenclature….it was fab…and not including tht sucks………
The Dark Knight was fine, but I don't get all the hype, that kind of epic crime movie has been done to death by films like Heat already, even the Departed goes into that category. I think thats why it wasn't nominated. Slumdog was a breath of a fresh air and deserves all the success it gets.
Who cares how much money a film makes, Pirates 2 and 3 were huge, but total garbage. Films like Dark Knight don't need awards, practically the whole planet has an opinion on a film like that, but smaller films are helped by the attention of an Oscar win so we end up with something different in our multiplexes instead of the usual stuff.
it is not whether it is a small film or a big film…
it is about art…and quite frankly TDK stands at the top in terms of tht…period!!!!
In Bruges was robbed….
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler >>>
Yeah the dark knight should be in the "best film" " best director" and argumment.
but the movie is in for 8 nominations in total, is not that bad.
hope heath ledger wins.
all you nerds and geeks ranting about "the dark knight" not getting the nominations it deserves should just put a sock in it!
it's a goddamn superhero movie with cheesy dialogue, implausible action acenes, over-the-top performances, and a guy walking around with half of his face burnt off,
yes, it's a fun action movie(if a bit long) but it's not an oscar contender for best picture,
come on
With The Dark Knight the Academy had a real opportunity to break away from the moulding, and to bring film noir and comic book adaptations to the spotlight. It was a chance to show the world they aren't a one trick pony, and it was handed to them on a single platter- in the form of one of the largest grossing, most popular films in the history of cinema.
For those who criticize the movie, well it's likely that you simply don't enjoy dark movies. That or you simply judge a book by its cover, and cannot see beyond your own prejudice. Just because it is a comic book adaptation you probably view it as dim and unintelligent.
This was a smart film, and it probably would have gotten a lot more respect from the academy if it didn't involve superhero costumes or flashy action scenes.
If you have the integrity to look beyond the costumes and the flashy action scenes and watch the characters and plot of the film, maybe you will see why it deserves recognition.
Hey guys! Does anyone has any information about Rachel Getting Married, I just can't find it on any site, I guess they didn't upload it into Rapidshare, at all? Thanks!!!!