Oscar ‘09: Who Will Win and Who Should Win

A scene from Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Best Actor
Who Will Win: This round of Rourke vs. Penn finds Mickey Rourke leading a 60/40 split over Penn.

Who Should Win: Its 60% support for Mickey Rourke here as well, while Penn takes 33%, and Richard Jenkins takes 7%.

Best Supporting Actress
Who Will Win: Penelope Cruz (87%), with some risk-takers giving hope to Marisa Tomei and Viola Davis (7% each)

Who Should Win: Voters agreed on the same three women, with slightly different results. Penelope Cruz is again the leader, with 80% saying she deserves it.  Davis gets a bit more support with 13%, and Tomei stagnates with 7%.

Best Supporting Actor
Who Will Win: Unsurprisingly, 100% of those polled say Heath Ledger.

Who Should Win: Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, only 46% think Heath Ledger deserves it.  Josh Brolin (20%), Michael Shannon (20%), and Robert Downey Jr (13%) all have fans at indieWIRE.

Best Original Screenplay
Who Will Win: “Milk”‘s Dustin Lance Black,” says 80%.  “Frozen River”‘s Courtney Hunt (13%) and “WALL-E”‘s Andrew Stanton (7%) are his closest competition.

Who Should Win: Everyone except “In Bruges”’ Martin McDonagh, apparently. “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s Mike Leigh found the most support (40%), while Stanton (33%), Black (20%) and Hunt (7%) followed.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Who Will Win: 87% say Simon Beaufoy‘s “Slumdog Millionaire” script will. Non-“Slumdog” sweep believers have “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”‘s Eric Roth and “Frost/Nixon”‘s Peter Morgan 7% a piece.

Who Should Win: It’s a tie! Between “Doubt”‘s John Patrick Shanley and, uh, “none of the above.” 33% thought Shanley’s adaptation of his own play deserved it, while the same thought none of the nominees did. 

Best Animated Film
Who Will Win and Who Should Win: This is the only occurrence of the poll in which everyone rightfully agreed on both: “WALL-E.”

Best Foreign Language Film
Who Will Win: What some argue is a close race isn’t suggested as such here. 93% said “Waltz With Bashir” will win over “The Class.”

Who Should Win: “The Class” and “Revanche” each found a few votes, but “Waltz With Bashir” again dominated, taking 87%.

Best Documentary Feature
Who Will Win: 93% say “Man on Wire.”

Who Should Win: Three films split this vote, with “Man on Wire” (40%) narrowly defeating “Encounters at the End of the World” (33%), and “Trouble The Water” (27%)

Best Cinematography
Who Will Win: “Slumdog” again, with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle winning 87% of our voters predictions.

Who Should Win: “The Dark Knight”‘s Wally Pfister (33%) over Mantle and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”‘s Claudio Miranda, each taking 27%.

Best Makeup
Who Will Win: Everyone said “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”‘s Greg Cannom.

Who Should Win: 67% again said Greg Cannom, with “The Dark Knight”‘s John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan next in line.

The ballots:

Erica Abeel | Kyle Buchanan | Tom Hall | Eugene Hernandez | Eric Hynes | James Israel | Keaton Kail | Eric Kohn | Michael Koresky | Peter Knegt | Karina Longworth | Anne Thompson | Basil Tsiokos | Michael Tully | Kim Voynar | Chris Wisniewski.