News » Take One Last Look at the Oscar Nominees!

Take One Last Look at the Oscar Nominees!

See who won our polls, earned our picks, and vote on the rest!

Oscar Poll

With just two days to go until Sunday's 82nd Annual Academy Awards, we at RT have our classy monkey suits and lucky undies pressed, ballots checked and ready, and homeopathic Tomato brews boiling in our dungeon/pantry to take us through our coverage of the show. We've made our picks, collected nearly 60,000 of your poll votes, gone through hundreds of your reviews of the nominees, and created an Oscar ballot for you to use during the show. So before you make your final picks with your feather dipped in ink from the neighborhood nightingale, we're going to sum up all the biggest awards for you and give you the opportunity to vote on every remaining category and see who others think will win. This way, you can wear the winner's crown at every Oscar party you attend this weekend (we won't even ask for a cut of the proceeds!).

Don't forget that you can watch the Oscars with RT this coming Sunday night! Our Editor-in-Chief Matt Atchity will be on Twitter live from the Oscars and you'll be able to follow him on our Awards Tour Oscar headquarters. There, you'll also be able to use your Facebook account to share your reactions to the show with RT staffers and RT users from around the world who will be merging with you onto our exit of the information superhighway. And to bring it all together, we'll be placing the newest Best Picture winner in its correct historical context with our latest Best of the Best Pictures guide on Sunday night!

With imminent Oscar-age and all the urgency of a Biggest Loser last chance workout, here's one last look at this year's biggest nominees and your last chance to vote on the rest of the categories before we leave it all in the envelope-opening hands of this year's presenters. See you on Sunday!


Best Picture

With over 40% of RT readers' votes, a 92% RT Community Tomatometer (only topped by Up at 94%) and an arguably as impressive endorsement from RT's editors, The Hurt Locker looks like the front runner for this year's Best Picture race. Avatar and Locker appeared to be headed to a photo finish in our poll, but the Iraq War drama pulled away in the latter part of the week to take a sizable lead. RT user Ambrish Gokuldas believes The Hurt Locker "will be the best war movie ever made in our times" and so with that being said, and a little producer drama aside, it stands as the movie to beat.


Avatar
Avatar
82%


An Education
An Education
94%


The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker
98%


Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds
88%


The Blind Side
The Blind Side
70%


District 9
District 9
90%


Precious
Precious
91%


A Serious Man
A Serious Man
87%


Up
Up
98%


Up in the Air
Up in the Air
90%


Achievement in Directing

Winning our Oscar poll with half of the total vote, sustaining the highest RT Community Tomatometer score, and representing RT's pick for the category, The Hurt Locker completes the prediction trifecta for the Best Director category. RT user Alex G. says Kathryn Bigelow "achieves what few are able to; make a war film that is unbiased, suspenseful and emotionally draining." Beating out both her former beau James Cameron (28%) and a crowd pleasing Quentin Tarantino (18%) by a sizable margin in our poll, Bigelow's chances at taking the "big two" look pretty strong.


Avatar
Avatar
(James Cameron)

82%


The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker
(Kathryn Bigelow)

98%


Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds
(Quentin Tarantino)

88%


Up In The Air
Up In The Air
(Jason Reitman)

90%


Precious
Precious
(Lee Daniels)

91%


Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

With all the momentum of a New Orleans Saints ("WHO DAT?!") run through the NFL playoffs, we named Jeff Bridges' performance in Crazy Heart as our pick for the Best Actor category. Garnering over 60% of the votes in our Oscar poll, followed by Up in the Air's George Clooney and The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner, both of whom have won awards this year, Bridges is the far and away favorite in the collective eyes of our users. Bill D 2007 says, "Let's hope this is Bridges' Oscar year at last. It's been a long time coming. Perfectly coiffed movie stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt get all the attention, but Bridges has put out vastly more interesting material than they have for 25 years running." Interestingly, Invictus' Morgan Freeman, who took home Best Actor honors from the National Board of Review, received the lowest number of votes in our Oscar poll, trailing A Single Man's Colin Firth, who has yet to take home a Best Actor award this season.

Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Crazy Heart
94%

George Clooney
George Clooney
Up in the Air
90%

Colin Firth
Colin Firth
A Single Man
83%

Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Invictus
77%

Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Renner
The Hurt Locker
98%

sunsaz

sunsaz on 03-5-2010 04:31 PM

With as much effort I'm putting into my predictions ballot (I need at least 10 to top my performance from the Globes), it most likely won't be my last look at them before Sunday.

If I can top that, I think I can be satisfied no matter who wins the big prize.

Tomas M.

Tomas M. on 03-5-2010 05:35 PM

After much consideration about who will win 'Best Picture', I have narrowed it down to about ten movies.

Anna S.

Anna S. on 03-5-2010 05:55 PM

After much consideration - for ' Best Picture ' I have narrowed it down to Tomas M

Josue A.

Josue A. on 03-5-2010 08:15 PM

i think gabourey sidibe to win, if she doesnt there goes another oscar win snub

DanielPeterTimothyRayXIX

DanielPeterTimothyRayXIX on 03-6-2010 12:44 PM

YEAH SHE SHOULD!

David R.

David R. on 03-5-2010 11:44 PM

it kinda bothers me that Streep and Bullock are the front runners for movies that were just okay. i know they're in an acting award, but Sidibe's performance was so furiously intense that she should run away with the award.

Tomas M.

Tomas M. on 03-6-2010 02:33 AM

I haven't seen most of the movies because I live in Australia and they take so long to be released. expecially in Tasmania...the smallest place in the world. : (

nick_danga

nick_danga on 03-6-2010 04:30 PM

damn right! i live in NSW australia. damn the releases!!!

nick_danga

nick_danga on 03-6-2010 04:36 PM

damn right! i live in NSW australia. damn the releases!!!

The Stunner

The Stunner on 03-6-2010 04:57 AM

everything is so unbearably predictable... not so much the big one though.

Alex H.

Alex H. on 03-6-2010 10:06 PM

STUNNER YOUR SOOO UNPREDICTABLE!!!

Maverick4527

Maverick4527 on 03-6-2010 01:04 PM

Can't believe Bullock won the RT poll for Best Actress. She's easily the worst of the five nominated and she's gonna win cause she's "nice". Crazy stuff

sunsaz

sunsaz on 03-6-2010 02:33 PM

Ugh. The O Screenplay, Sound, Sound Editing, Foreign Language, and all the Shorts categories are killing me.

Emerald1234S

Emerald1234S on 03-6-2010 04:38 PM

The Foreign Language will be interesting. I've only seen Un Prophete and Ajami, I missed The White Ribbon and the other two didn't even make it to this country. In fact Revanche, which was nominated in this category last year, only made it here two weeks ago....for one screening....during a film festival. And foreign language films tend to be far more original than English-language ones.

That said, the nominees for best picture this year are mostly superb. Much better than last year. I've managed seven of them so far and honestly think (without the obvious "politics" that are always involved in these choices) that Up in the Air was the best film nominated. Certainly won't win but I hope it gets best Adapted Screenplay.

Toby H.

Toby H. on 03-6-2010 04:44 PM

I cannot believe it. Films like An Education, District 9, and A Single Man are going to go home empty handed. Sure, Avatar's not exactly the most original sci-fi out there, but doesn't the film deserve at least one major award for revolutionizing filmmaking?

Bigelow is definitely going to win in the director's category, so why not award Avatar with the big prize? I've gotta admit, I really enjoyed The Hurt Locker and found it extremely intense, but it's a film unseen by a lot of normal filmgoers, unlike Avatar. Hell, Avatar broke box-office records. It's the most popular movie ever with a fan base a million times larger than Locker's. Seeing from the nominees this year, (ackhem, The Blind Side) I assume that the Academy's goal is to increase the number of viewers and to satisfy audiences, rather than actually celebrate magnificent films. Therefore, if the Academy is smart and wants to avoid Twitter rants by Avatar-lovers, they'll let Avatar take home Picture and Bigelow director.

The nominees in the acting categories aren't really the best actors/actresses of the year. Ever wondered why most of the nominated actors/actresses gained their nominations for critically acclaimed films? (Except for Penelope Cruz in Nine and Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones) There are a lot of bad movies with great performances, which are simply ignored by the Academy. I'm quite fine with that and we've been used to that for years, but if that's true, then WTF IS THE BLIND SIDE DOING IN THE BEST PICTURE AND ACTRESS CATEGORY? Hey, it's not a bad movie, but Oscar-worthy? The Blind Side's nomination was a kick in the butt for films which actually deserved a nomination, like Star Trek, Where the Wild Things Are, (500) Days of Summer, The Hangover, etc.
Please, let there be a miracle on Sunday night- let Carey Mulligan win for An Education.

And one final comment- Original Screenplay- I've had it with Locker winning everything, so PLEASE LET INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS WIN. But here's my theory- since the O.S. category is one of the earliest awards given on Oscar night, this is how I'm going to predict- if The Hurt Locker wins, then it's 99% going to win Best Picture. However, if IB wins, then Avatar still has a pretty good chance of winning.

Tomas M.

Tomas M. on 03-6-2010 08:17 PM

I think Avatar was great, but 'Best Picture' is a category that is meant for the film with the best all round achievement in the main areas (Direction, writing, Acting). Avatar had wonderful direction, but the writing and acting weren't more than average, in general. Avatar certainly deserved the nomination, and certainly deserves the technical awards, but I think that the 'Best Picture' should be the one that is really all round brilliant story telling. From the looks of things, that film is 'The Hurt Locker'.

Jake007

Jake007 on 03-7-2010 01:36 AM

I think that Hurt Locker for Best Picture and Avatar for directing makes sense.

Tomas M.

Tomas M. on 03-6-2010 08:06 PM

inglourious Basterds! : D

Hope J.

Hope J. on 03-6-2010 08:55 PM

I thought it would be the Hurt Locker for sure, but now I am beginning to second guess myself. See my profile for more details!!!

Maybe it WILL be Avatar?

Chris L.

Chris L. on 03-7-2010 12:22 AM

Some of the community predictions kind of surprise me. The Door is my fav short as well, but it's not going to win against The New Tenants. In fact, The Door wouldn't even survive a head to head against Instead of Abracadabra. I do hope I'm wrong on this one though.

As far as animated shorts go, Logorama was fresh and original to say the least, but despite the great caricature of Mr. Clean the overall film was still just slightly too heavy with political activism for its own good. Nick Park has an extremely impressive track record as well, so seeing so much support for Logorama kind of shocked me.

Serious Lee

Serious Lee on 03-7-2010 12:46 AM

See my 2010 Oscar picks and why I picked them on my blog at rottentomatoes.com/member/serious-lee. Be my guest to comment and tell me your favs. Have a fun night at the Oscars!

Jojo

Jojo on 03-7-2010 04:29 AM

What was so special about the hurt locker?
I saw it today and i saw nothing remarkable about the script. Its kinda a day in the life of a solider, there is no real depth to it other than the good acting. Best picture, no way. Avatar deserves it all the way.

Anantha N.

Anantha N. on 03-7-2010 08:43 AM

Christopher waltz
Up,
the hurt locker
morgan freeman

thunderstruck560

thunderstruck560 on 03-7-2010 12:19 PM

I hate these pick who you want to win, and then pick who you think will win. Its attitudes like this that cause Sandra Bullock to get best actress and Blind Side to get nominated for best picture. CAREY MULLIGAN IS WHO I WANT TO WIN, AND I AM PICKING HER TO WIN! Simple as that. And District 9 to win best picture (absolute blasphemy, i know, but it is 100 times the movie Avatar is), and Ajami to win best foreign film. Sandra Bullock can go back to the Razzies where she belongs (she won the razzie for worst actress of the year). I think Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus should have waited to come out this year and get the utter praise it deserves. It didnt open in a theater 100 miles from my house, but thanks to the internet i got to see it. Im waiting for a "Shakespeare in Love" upset. In 1998, Shakespeare in Love pulled an upset over Steven Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrance Malik's Thin Red Line. Some would say that is because two war movies nominated at once lowers the chances of one winning, but it was surely an upset. Plus it will probably be the last time a movie with Ben Affleck wins best picture.

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