81st Academy Awards Winners

Here are the winners in the major categories. To check all the winners, as well as the Sci-Tech awards go here.

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Slumdog Millionaire
Foreign Language Film of the Year: Departures, Yojiro Takita, Japan
Best Animated Feature Film: WALL-E
Best Director: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Kate Winslet in The Reader
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn in Milk
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black for Milk

As I imagined Slumdog Millionaire got the award in all the categories where it was nominated, with one exception Achievement in Sound Editing where The Dark Knight won.

From the 13 nominations The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had won three awards for Achievement in Visual Effects (truly deserved), in Makeup (well deserved) and Art Direction (was better than the other nominees).

The mother of all awards is over for now and we will have to wait a year for another American award season that I hope –in general- honors “better” movies than the current season or perhaps now maybe the world opens to Bollywood movies to discover that Slumdog Millionaire was not that exceptional or unique. Sigh.