British Oscar Success

23 January 2009

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So as expected it's Slumdog Millionaire that leads the British charge at this year's Academy Awards with an impressive ten nominations, including one for Best Picture.

After the film's success at the Golden Globes, winning Best Motion Picture Drama and Best Director for Danny Boyle, the film was a favourite to feature heavily at yesterday's nominations.

However Slumdog face some tough competition in the Best Picture category with The Reader, Milk, Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which leads the nominations with thirteen nods.

The rags to riches story has been the toast of the awards circuit so far, and more success is surely to follows at next month's Baftas. But there was a whole host of British talent that was recognised by the Academy.

The darling of British cinema Kate Winslet secured her sixth Oscar nomination for her role in Holocaust drama The Reader, however the actress will not be doing the double with her role in Revolutionary Road being overlooked.

The Reader finds itself in the Best Picture category, as does Frost/Nixon which contains a whole host of British talent. The Reader's director Stephen Daldry will go head to head with fellow Brit Danny Boyle in the Best Director category, and you feel that the winner will probably be one of these two filmmakers.

But Kate Winslet has her work cut out against Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Melissa Leo and Anne Hathaway, many's tip to take the gong, who all join her in the Best Actress category.

However there was disappointment for actress Sally Hawkins as she missed out on a Best Actress nod despite her performance in Happy Go Lucky dominating other awards, she picked up a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy.

But there was major success in the Screenplay categories with a whole host of British writers gaining nominations. Peter Morgan, who wrote Frost.Nixon, is up for Best Adapted Screenplay and is joined by Slumdog writer Simon Beaufoy and David Hare for The Reader.

In the Best Original Screenplay filmmaker Martin McDonagh gets the chance to scoop the award for his debut film In Bruges and he is joined by Mike Leigh for his screenplay Happy Go Lucky.

The winners will be announced 23rd February.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw