The Academy Award Nominations! Button and Slumdog Lead, Dark Knight Snubbed from Best Picture

The Academy nominated Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor, as expected, but did not nominate The Dark Knight for Best Picture, Director, or Adapted Screenplay -- nominating instead, in each case, Holocaust drama The Reader, which got mixed reviews. If you sense bitterness in my tone, congratulations: the Academy really dropped the ball.

Not because I loved The Dark Knight, mind you. Because ignoring it exposes the Academy as a pathetically out-of-touch voting body that has now lost a great deal of relevance. I wrote a longer piece about this at The Cinema Source, so if you're interested, check it out.

The Dark Knight and The Reader aside, there were other, more pleasant surprises: Richard Jenkins made it onto the Best Actor list for The Visitor; Melissa Leo scored a Best Actress nomination for Frozen River, and In Bruges, a personal favorite of mine, landed an Original Screenplay nomination.

Overall, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button led with thirteen nominations, and Slumdog Millionaire, the current frontrunner, had ten. Milk and The Dark Knight -- the latter buoyed by a number of tech nominations -- both had eight.

You can examine the official list of nominees in the top ten biggest categories below. Head over to Oscar.com for the complete rundown.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Frost/Nixon
* Milk
* The Reader
* Slumdog Millionaire

Achievement in Directing

* David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
* Gus Van Sant, Milk
* Stephen Daldry, The Reader
* Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

* Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
* Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
* Sean Penn, Milk
* Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

* Josh Brolin, Milk
* Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
* Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
* Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
* Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

* Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
* Angelina Jolie, Changeling
* Melissa Leo, Frozen River
* Kate Winslet. The Reader
* Meryl Streep, Doubt

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

* Amy Adams, Doubt
* Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
* Viola Davis, Doubt
* Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Original Screenplay

* Dustin Lance Black, Milk
* Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
* Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
* Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
* Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, WALL-E

Adapted Screenplay

* Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
* Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
* David Hare, The Reader
* Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

* Bolt
* Kung Fu Panda
* Wall-E

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

* The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
* The Class (France)
* Departures (Japan)
* Revanche (Austria)
* Waltz With Bashir (Israel)

Recent Entries:
· The Crowded Animated Feature Problem
· 'An Education' Heats Up
· Roman Polanski's Arrest Makes Everyone Go Insane

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