If Javier Bardem gets a nod from the Academy for The Sea Inside, in which he embodying the physically immobile Spaniard poet, he will join the company of Supporting winner Harold Russell, a real-life hero who played himself in The Best Years of Our Lives, and Best Actor winner Jon Voight, as a sensitive Vietnam vet on a wheelchair in Coming Home.

With the exception of Jonathan Demme and the Coen brothers, no other filmmakers have  won a directorial Oscar for a thriller, including Hitchcock, the genre's acknowledged master.  Hitchcock was nominated five times: for Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window (1954), and Psycho (1960). No wonder, he was cynical in his view of the Oscar, telling a reporter he wasn't disappointed, because, “Why do I want another doorstop?”

Is Kate Winslet’s role in “The Reader” lead or supporting? The studio, the Weinstein Company, has been campaigning for her in the Supporting league, knowing that two strong roles in the same category will cancel each other out, or split the Academy voters.

Read about the Costume Guild Awards nominations in period, contemporary, and fantasy film.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has narrowed down its foreign-language contenders to nine semi-finalists. The five nominees will be announced, along with other categories, on January 22, 2009.