Here are the winners of the 2009 Academy Awards. There was lots of celebration at Fox Searchlight as Slumdog Millionaire cleans up for most of the night. The biggest surprise was perhaps the foreign language Oscar going to Japan for Okuribito. And Kudos to the Man on Wire team for taking home the feature documentary award.
– - BEST PICTURE
*Slumdog Millionaire
*Milk
*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
*Frost/Nixon
*The Reader
– - BEST DIRECTOR
*Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
*David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
*Gus Van Sant – Milk
*Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
*Stephen Daldry – The Reader
– - BEST ACTOR
*Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
*Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
*Sean Penn – Milk
*Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
*Brad Pitt- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
– - BEST ACTRESS
*Meryl Streep – Doubt
*Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
*Kate Winslet – The Reader
*Melissa Leo – Frozen River
*Angelina Jolie – The Changeling
– - BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
*Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
*Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
*Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
*Josh Brolin – Milk
*Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
– - BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
*Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
*Viola Davis – Doubt
*Amy Adams – Doubt
*Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
*Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
– - BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
*The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
*Encounters at the End of the World
*The Garden
*Man on Wire
*Trouble the Water
– - BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE
*Waltz with Bashir
*Revanche
*The Class
*The Baadar Meinhof Complex
*Okuribito
The rest of the Oscar winners are tucked under the seat.
– - BEST SCREENPLAY (adapted)
*Slumdog Millionaire – Simon Beaufoy
*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Roth
*Doubt – John Patrick Shanley
*Frost/Nixon – Peter Morgan
*The Reader – David Hare
– - BEST SCREENPLAY (original)
*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
– - BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
*Bolt
*Kung-Fu Panda
*Wall-e
– - BEST ART DIRECTION
*Changeling – James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis
*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Burt, Victor Zolfo
*The Dark Knight – Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando
*The Duchess – Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway
*Revolutionary Road – Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt
– - 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
– - BEST FILM 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
– - 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
– - BEST MAKE-UP
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
– - BEST ORIGINAL 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
– - BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Down to Earth” – WALL-E (Peter Gabriel)
“Jaiho” – Slumdog Millionaire (Gulzar and A.R. Rahman)
“O Saya” – Slumdog Millionaire (Gulzar and A.R. Rahman)
– - BEST SOUND MIXING
Wall-e
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
– - BEST SOUND EDITING
Wall-e
Iron Man
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
– - BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
1) entertaining show overall. i liked the more laid back atmosphere. Hugh Jackman was a great host.
2) Heath Ledger’s family was touching.
3) Cruz over Tomei? REALLY?!?
4) Penn over Rourke? REALLY?!?
5) why did Jennifer Aniston present I was left wondering?
6) where was Jack Nicholson? George Clooney? Harrison Ford? lame turnout.
7) probably would have given best pic to Benjamin Button but i am not too disappointed about Slumdog.
I have to agree with you on most points, Ralph. I still maintain that while Penn did a good job, it was Roarke who truly deserved Best Actor. And there is no way I will accept that Penelope Cruz gave a better performance than Marisa Tomei. Heck, she wouldn’t have even been my second choice for Supporting Actress!
I can do this all day mercurie:
It is here that I will begin my stand, which nobody will care about – The Reader was robbed.
That’s right. The Reader.
The (60% Fresh) Reader was robbed of Best Picture.
Dominic, not sure if you are being sarcastic by throwing up RT scores, but If I had to pick between the 5, yea, it would absolutely be THE READER. It is a compelling motion picture that almost never takes the easy way out of things (only one minor gaffe at the end). Hey, the movie makes you think in ways that Slumdog, Milk, and Ben Button all simply fill in almost everything for you.
I’m one-hundred percent serious – I posted those numbers simply due to the backlash I witnessed when The Reader, despite largely middling reviews, was nominated for Best Picture.
To me, The Reader was a significant step above Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Frost/Nixon. To put it numerically:
The Reader – 9.5
The CC of BB – 8
Milk – 8
Frost/Nixon – 7.5
Slumdog Millionaire – 7.25
I have to agree Dominic. Although my numbers for those other pictures would be lower than yours, and maybe The Reader not quite as high, but out of all the Academy lauded pictures, the only two that were in my personal top 10 were The Wrestler and The Reader. (The Dark Knight perhaps should have been there, but it is an easy movie to nitpick due to its super-high profile (i.e. the strangely inconsistent editing of the picture and overblow ‘prisoners dilemma’ boat scene), but still TDK is miles above Milk, Millionare or Ben Button.
As it has been documented many times before, Id have loved to see some more love for Synecdoche, NY, Rachel Getting Married, White Night Wedding and Let The Right One In. And what the hell is up with no nods for CHE? Note even Best Actor? WTF*.
Blindness was too Extreme for Oscar, even by Braveheart level violence standards.
*I guess the real mystery here is why I’m still talking about this. Aren’t we supposed to forget all this stuff as soon as the show is over?
Synedoche, NY and Rachel Getting Married were criminal in being left off of the ballot, as well – they actually round out my top-three for 2008. Let the Right One In was probably better than the other four nominees, as well.
you are preaching to the choir Domenic, totally agree.
and speaking of missed best actors, although W was shit, Josh Brolin was very good as Bush, suprised by its absence.
Next year, I am calling it, the actor who plays Orson Welles in Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles will be nominated, if not winning. I’m not big on impersonations, but jesus, this is more of a seance possession.
To be honest, I was pretty satisfied with the nominees for Best Actor. Only Brad Pitt seemed out of place, and the split screentime between Kross and Fiennes probably cost both a nomination (though both were better than Pitt).
The quality of W. was fairly subpar, and the whole satire angle doesn’t really strike an Oscar-chord.