‘Hurt Locker’ Oscar Credits Controversy
UPDATE: Let me say from the outset that, for Best Picture, Star Trek was robbed. So was Invictus. And (500) Days of Summer. And The Messenger. And A Single Man. And Coraline. Meanwhile, the only real tension on March 7th will be whether Avatar or The Hurt Locker, and James Cameron or Kathryn Bigelow, and Meryl Streep or Sandra Bullock, take the Oscar. The rest of the marquee categories are shoo-ins (Jeff Bridges, Mo’Nique, Christoph Waltz, The White Ribbon). Which is a tad more uncertainty and excitement than the world’s most boring broadcast has experienced in years past. Maybe ratings will be up…
The studio scorecard shows Sony Pictures Classics tied with The Weinstein Company for most nominations, 13. Overall, Sony had the most nominations with 18 (including 13 for Sony Classics) but only 1 for a film developed in-house, Fox was next with 14 (including 3 for Fox Searchlight), The Weinstein Co had 13, Paramount 12, Universal 11 (including 2 for Focus Features and Working Title Films, and 1 for just Focus Features), Summit Entertainment 9, Disney 8, Warner Bros 7, and Lionsgate 6.
Here is the scorecard by film: “Avatar” 9, “The Hurt Locker” 9, “Inglourious Basterds” 8, “Precious” 6, “Up in the Air” 6, “Up” 5, “District 9” 4, “Nine” 4, “Star Trek” 4, “Crazy Heart” 3, “An Education” 3, “The Princess and the Frog” 3, “The Young Victoria” 3, “The Blind Side” 2, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” 2, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” 2, “Invictus” 2, “The Last Station” 2, “The Messenger” 2, “A Serious Man” 2, “Sherlock Holmes” 2, “The White Ribbon” 2.
Meryl Streep’s nomination for “Julie & Julia” is her 16th, further distancing herself from Katharine Hepburn, 12, and Jack Nicholson, 12. (Though Hepburn won 4 Best Actress Oscars and Nicholson 2 Best Actor Academy Awards as well as 1 Best Supporting Actor, Streep has just 1 Best Actress Oscar and 1 Best Supporting Actress.)
Peter Jackson and his team of collaborators in New Zealand have the distinction of garnering nominations with 3 films: the 4 nominations for “District 9″, Stanley Tucci’s Best Supporting Actor nomination for “The Lovely Bones”, and Weta Digital’s work on “Avatar”.
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At 5:38 AM PT: It’s the crack of dawn, and nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were just announced by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak and Oscar-nominated actress Anne Hathaway at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards
Best motion picture of the year
“Avatar” A Lightstorm Entertainment Production
James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers (20th Century Fox)
“The Blind Side” An Alcon Entertainment Production
Nominees to be determined (Warner Bros.)
“District 9” A Block/Hanson Production
Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers (Sony Pictures Releasing)
“An Education” A Finola Dwyer/Wildgaze Films Production
Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers (Sony Pictures Classics)
“The Hurt Locker” A Voltage Pictures Production
Nominees to be determined (Summit Entertainment)
“Inglourious Basterds”
A Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures/A Band Apart/Zehnte Babelsberg Production
Lawrence Bender, Producer (The Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures)
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
A Lee Daniels Entertainment/Smokewood Entertainment Production
Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” A Working Title Films Production
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers (Focus Features)
“Up” A Pixar Production
Jonas Rivera, Producer (Walt Disney)
“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
A Montecito Picture Company Production
Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers
Achievement in directing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) James Cameron
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Kathryn Bigelow
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures) Quentin Tarantino
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate) Lee Daniels
“Up in the Air” (Paramount with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) Jason Reitman
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (Paramount with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Colin Firth in “A Single Man” (The Weinstein Company)
Morgan Freeman in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.)
Helen Mirren in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Carey Mulligan in “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Matt Damon in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (DreamWorks with Film4, Distributed by Paramount)
Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Penélope Cruz in “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air” (Paramount with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air” (Paramount with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
Best animated feature film of the year
“Coraline” (Focus Features) Henry Selick
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox) Wes Anderson
“The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney) John Musker and Ron Clements
“The Secret of Kells” (GKIDS) Tomm Moore
“Up” (Walt Disney) Pete Docter
Adapted screenplay
Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell - “District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Nick Hornby – “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche - “In the Loop” (IFC)
Geoffrey Fletcher - “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – “Up in the Air” (Paramount with Cold Spring and DW)
Original screenplay
Mark Boal – “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)
Quentin Tarantino – “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman – “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope)
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – “A Serious Man” (Focus Features)
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter – “Up” (Walt Disney)
Achievement in cinematography
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Mauro Fiore
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.) Bruno Delbonnel
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Barry Ackroyd
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) Robert Richardson
“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics) Christian Berger
Achievement in costume design
“Bright Star” (Apparition) Janet Patterson
“Coco before Chanel” (Sony Pictures Classics) Catherine Leterrier
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Classics) Monique Prudhomme
“Nine” (The Weinstein Company) Colleen Atwood
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition) Sandy Powell
Best documentary feature
“Burma VJ” A Magic Hour Films Production (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
“The Cove” An Oceanic Preservation Society Production (Roadside Attractions)
Nominees to be determined
“Food, Inc.” A Robert Kenner Films Production (Magnolia Pictures)
Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
“The Most Dangerous Man in America” A Kovno Communications Production
Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
“Which Way Home” A Mr. Mudd Production
Rebecca Cammisa
Best documentary short subject
“China’s Unnatural Disaster” A Downtown Community TV Center Production
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” A Just Media Production
Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” A Community Media Production
Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
“Music by Prudence” An iThemba Production
Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
“Rabbit à la Berlin” An MS Films Production (Deckert Distribution)
Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra
Achievement in film editing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Julian Clarke
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) Sally Menke
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate) Joe Klotz
Best foreign language film of the year
Israel – “Ajami”
An Inosan Production (Kino International)
Argentina – “El Secreto de Sus Ojos”
A Haddock Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)
Peru – “The Milk of Sorrow”
A Wanda Visión/Oberon Cinematogràfica/Vela Production
France – “Un Prophète”
A Why Not/Page 114/Chic Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)
Germany – “The White Ribbon”
X Filme Creative Pool/Wega Film/Les Films du Losange/Lucky Red Production (Sony Classics)
Achievement in makeup
“Il Divo” (MPI Media Group through Music Box) Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass) Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition) Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox) Alexandre Desplat
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.) Hans Zimmer
“Up” (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Almost There” (Walt Disney)
Music and Lyric by Randy Newman from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Down in New Orleans” (Walt Disney)
Music and Lyric by Randy Newman from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Loin de Paname” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyric by Frank Thomas from “Paris 36”
“Take It All” (The Weinstein Company)
Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston from “Nine”
“The Weary Kind” (Theme from “Crazy Heart”) (Fox Searchlight)
Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Best animated short film
“French Roast” A Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films Production
Fabrice O. Joubert
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” A Brown Bag Films Production
Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
“The Lady and the Reaper” Kandor Graphics & Green Moon Production
Javier Recio Gracia
“Logorama” An Autour de Minuit Production
Nicolas Schmerkin
“A Matter of Loaf and Death” An Aardman Animations Production
Nick Park
Best live action short film
“The Door” An Octagon Films Production (Network Ireland Television)
Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
“Instead of Abracadabra” A Directörn & Fabrikörn Production (Swedish Film Institute)
Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
“Kavi” A Gregg Helvey Production
Gregg Helvey
“Miracle Fish” A Druid Films Production
Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
“The New Tenants” A Park Pictures and M & M Production
Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson
Achievement in sound editing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Paul N.J. Ottosson
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) Wylie Stateman
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
“Up” (Walt Disney) Michael Silvers and Tom Myers
Achievement in sound mixing
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)
Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)
Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)
Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)
Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (DreamWorks and Paramount with Hasbro)
Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson
Achievement in visual effects
“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
“District 9” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)
Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton
Achievement in art direction
“Avatar” (Twentieth Century Fox)
Set Decoration: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
Art Direction: Kim Sinclair
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro
Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
“Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
Art Direction: John Myhre
Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros)
Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood
Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“The Young Victoria” (Apparition)
Art Direction: Patrice Vermette
Set Decoration: Maggie Gray
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.







Avatar will win best pic, unless the Academy wants to be farther out of touch with the public than Pandora. K.B. will justifiably get best director and earn tons of bonus love for the Academy by women and ex’s everywhere. Everything else is a party mix.
@Valerie – I agree, ‘Tetro’ was amazing. Also, ’500 Days of Summer’ missing is not good!
So much overkill with 10 picture nominees. When there was last 10, there was no television or cable shows. Hollywood then was the only place producing films for mass audiences. The tradition for the past 7 decades was shunted aside to get a bigger TV rating and was instituted by a minority of Board members without consulting membership.
Congrats to all nominees – you deserve them! As for “best” picture nominees? Well, not as special, eh?
Tough list for beat picture. I would love to see Up pull an upset. It was clearly the best film of the year. It will probably go to Avatar. BTW, for all the Up nay Sayers, I would have bet on Up being in the mix with 5 nominees.
STAR TREK was the Best Picture of the year. Avatar was fun, but poorly written. Star Trek was executed perfectly. It is the best film of the series and year.
Hold the phone…you think Avatar is poorly written, but Star Trek was the best movie of the year? Yikes. Avatar actually had a plot that I could follow from beginning to end. Star Trek’s plot jumped in so many different directions, I couldn’t count them. Leonard Nimoy was awesome though…
If you had said District 9 was the best movie of the year, that would have been much more appropriate.
It should be Matt Damon for THE INFORMANT, not INVICTUS.
So, are we supposed to infer that the REAL Best Picture nominees are the films nominated under Best Director? Isn’t that how it usually is anyway? This list of 10 is ridiculous. It may be an honor just to be nominated, but The Blind Side is probably the only sub-five nominee that has a chance of drawing in any extra viewers….
Glad to see The Cove get the Oscar treatment. No movie has ever affected me the way that one did.
How was INVICTUS robbed, Nikki? I’m a huge Clint fan, and even I was disappointed.
THE BLIND SIDE for Best Picture? How about MOON or A SINGLE MAN or 500 DAYS OF SUMMER? Oh well.
Glad to see Lee Daniels get the nom over Clint Eastwood. Eastwood’s a great director, but didn’t deserve a nom for INVICTUS.
no real surprises here . . . other than Penelope for Best Supporting in the disastrously conceived Nine . . .
Serious Man? Such a mediocre film with virtually nothing fresh about it. If Coens didn’t have their name on it, it would have been shut out.
The biggest truth is the absurdity of 10 best pics. No surprise that you can easily delete 5 pics from Blind Side (broadly commercially but not cinematically interesting), Serious Man (mediocre as stated), Inglorious Basterd (entertaining but somewhat of a mess), etc.
Good to see that comedies are ignored again, other than the obligatory Pixar noms (which we can all agree are a horse of a different color). But it is great to see that the Academy didn’t go strictly for Oscar-bait this year, good on that!
A Single Man shut out for art direction and cinematography
500 days not present in the writing category
Blind Side for best picture
no editing nomination for Up in the Air
Penelope Cruz over Julianne Moore for supporting actress
ugh. I guess the Oscars had some good times, 1999 – 2007, but that’s all over now.
at least In the Loop got a writing nod, and at least A Serious Man got a best picture nod. that’ll give me some solace tonight.
Very please with these nominations! And I agree that it’s a shame that ‘(500) Days Of Summer’ was snubbed for Best Pic and Best Screenplay–what a shame!
Was glad to see that the over-hyped and utterly nihilistic ‘The Road’ didn’t get any nods. That movie is over-regarded.
if you think the road was nihilistic, you don’t know what “nihilistic” means.
How is “The Road” over-regarded and over-hyped? It got no love during the awards season and it should have. No doubt one of the best five movies of the year. And Viggo was snubbed too. Best performance of his career.
You obviously have no taste in good films, with that said you obviously don’t know what your talking about if you think that ‘The Road’ was “Over-hyped”.
I couldn’t believe that ‘The Road’ didnt EVEN get recognized, It’s a slap in the face to a really good movie and acting. Maybe it’s just me, but the Road left an impression, a thought, even a sense of depression. And If a film can do that to you, than it should AT LEAST be recognized.
Nikki — the only robbery associated with Invictus was my wallet in paying $12.50 for a glorified TV movie.
And so begins the steroid era of BEST PICTURE NOMINATIONS…
Noms going forward will need a asterik next to them to differentiate them between the era when five movies contended and when the flood gates opened and just everyone did.
amen.
Invictus was robbed? What a joke that movie was. Terrible script and Clint phoned in the whole movie. It was bad on every level. So bad the DGA even chose to ignore it. Don’t defend that movie please.
I’ve always wondered why they do the nominations so bleeping early?? Could someone enlighten me??
It’s all about getting live coverage on East Coast morning news shows.
To accomodate the east coast people, so they don’t have to wake up and sit around getting ulcers wondering.
Also it makes for better stories when actors say they were woken up by a call saying they had been nominated!!!!!
I’m no expert, but I think it was to cut down on all the over the top campaigning. although I don’t think that worked.
So the news shows on the East Coast have them by 8:00 a.m.
Also District 9 was almost all improvised people.
KELLS, baby, KELLS! Whoever said hand-drawn animation was dead (or buried in formula) has not seen this movie.
Surprised and disappointed not seeing “Moon” and “Star Trek” in Best Picture category…
Wow. Even with ten nominations, the Academy bollocks it up, failing to include not only 500 Days of Summer, but Where the Wild Things Are, and, as more obscure films go, Brothers Bloom, Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and Moon, all of which were great films deserving of some attention in the expanded list.
Other shocks – how did Ponyo miss a nomination for best animated feature?
I’m with you on Ponyo but IDP? That was a hellacious bore!
Ponyo was released in July 2008 – thats why no nomination this year
Uh because it sucked.
Star Trek was robbed of best pix? It was a great popcorn flick but that’s about it. Don’t think it was robbed unless you’re a trekkie, lol. Coraline is being nominated quite appropriately in the category of best animated flick. I don’t know how Nikki could feel that one is deserving of a best pix nod.
Seriously, how can anyone think Star Trek could be nominated when there are already 2 sci-fi flicks on the list, one the biggest flick in 12 years and the other, district 9, is just flat out better.
Say flick one more time…
District 9? Really? And The Blind Side wasn’t all that great either. Best Picture should go to one of these four: An Education, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, or Precious.
And at least The Hangover wasn’t nominated.
I love Sony’s 18 nominations but only 1 from films developed in house (SPC films are acquisitions, as was District 9.
I think the new Best Picture voting system favors The Hurt Locker and seriously hurts Avatar. I could see a lot of 1′s for Avatar which will basically offset and 10′s it gets. Meanwhile, I don’t see an overwhelming amount of 10′s for Hurt Locker, but I would be shocked to see very many below 5′s, which might be enough in a very crowded group.
I still hold out hope for an Up In The Air surprise (hard to call it an upset) as I think it was the best film of 2009.