"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Slumdog Millionaire" Come Out of Round 11 With 11 BAFTA Nominations Each Going into the Final Round

This morning, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced their nominees for the best of 2008. To put it simply, the BAFTA Awards are bascially the British version of the Oscar Awards here on the other side of the pond. In reality, many AMPAS members (the organization that awards the Oscar) are also BAFTA members, so these nominations are a decent indicator of where Oscar nominations may land next week. Our brothers on the other side of the pond tend to have somewhat similar tastes, although there are always some diverging points (for example, Tilda Swinton won't be nominated for an Oscar here this year, but they love their Tilda in the U.K.). At any rate, the big news from this morning's nominations is of course the continued domination of Slumdog Millionaire as it garnered 11 nominations, including nods for Dev Patel (for LEAD actor, thank you BAFTA, I don't know why some are insisting he's supporting, the film is his story) and Freida Pinto, who are truly the heart and soul of the brilliantly written and directed film. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was also nominated for 11 awards, but this is more expected considering the technical achievements of the film. The other big winners were The Dark Knight with 9 nominations (although the only major was Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger, the rest were all technical nods), and Clint Eastwood's Changeling actually did surprisingly well with 8 nominations, yet missing a Best Picture nomination. At any rate, all of the nominations can be found below...

BEST FILM
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Ceán Chaffin
FROST/NIXON – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard
MILK – Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen
THE READER – Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti, Redmond Morris
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Christian Colson

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
HUNGER – Laura Hastings-Smith, Robin Gutch, Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh
IN BRUGES – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh
MAMMA MIA! – Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman, Phyllida Lloyd, Catherine Johnson
MAN ON WIRE – Simon Chinn, James Marsh
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Christian Colson, Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy

THE CARL FOREMAN AWARD
for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer for their First Feature Film
SIMON CHINN (Producer) – Man On Wire
JUDY CRAYMER (Producer) – Mamma Mia!
GARTH JENNINGS (Writer) – Son of Rambow
STEVE McQUEEN (Director/Writer) – Hunger
SOLON PAPADOPOULOS, ROY BOULTER (Producers) – Of Time And The City

DIRECTOR
CHANGELING – Clint Eastwood
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – David Fincher
FROST/NIXON – Ron Howard
THE READER – Stephen Daldry
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Danny Boyle

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BURN AFTER READING – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
CHANGELING – J. Michael Straczynski
I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG – Philippe Claudel
IN BRUGES – Martin McDonagh
MILK – Dustin Lance Black

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Eric Roth
FROST/NIXON – Peter Morgan
THE READER – David Hare
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD – Justin Haythe
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Simon Beaufoy

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX – Bernard Eichinger, Uli Edel
GOMORRAH – Domenico Procacci, Matteo Garrone
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG – Yves Marmion, Philippe Claudel
PERSEPOLIS – Marc-Antoine Robert, Xavier Rigault, Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Parannaud
WALTZ WITH BASHIR – Serge Lalou, Gerhard Meixner, Yael Nahl Ieli, Ari Folman

ANIMATED FILM
PERSEPOLIS – Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Parannaud
WALL•E – Andrew Stanton
WALTZ WITH BASHIR – Ari Folman

LEADING ACTOR
FRANK LANGELLA – Frost/Nixon
DEV PATEL – Slumdog Millionaire
SEAN PENN – Milk
BRAD PITT – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
MICKEY ROURKE – The Wrestler

LEADING ACTRESS
ANGELINA JOLIE – Changeling
KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS – I’ve Loved You So Long
MERYL STREEP – Doubt
KATE WINSLET – The Reader
KATE WINSLET – Revolutionary Road

SUPPORTING ACTOR
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. – Tropic Thunder
BRENDAN GLEESON – In Bruges
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN – Doubt
HEATH LEDGER – The Dark Knight
BRAD PITT – Burn After Reading

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
AMY ADAMS – Doubt
PENÉLOPE CRUZ – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
FREIDA PINTO – Slumdog Millionaire
TILDA SWINTON – Burn After Reading
MARISA TOMEI – The Wrestler

MUSIC
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Alexandre Desplat
THE DARK KNIGHT – Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard
MAMMA MIA! – Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – A. R. Rahman
WALL•E – Thomas Newman

CINEMATOGRAPHY
CHANGELING – Tom Stern
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Claudio Miranda
THE DARK KNIGHT – Wally Pfister
THE READER – Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Anthony Dod Mantle

EDITING
CHANGELING – Joel Cox, Gary D. Roach
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
THE DARK KNIGHT – Lee Smith
FROST/NIXON – Mike Hill, Dan Hanley
IN BRUGES – Jon Gregory
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Chris Dickens

PRODUCTION DESIGN
CHANGELING – James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
THE DARK KNIGHT – Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD – Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE – Mark Digby, Michelle Day

COSTUME DESIGN
CHANGELING – Deborah Hopper
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Jacqueline West
THE DARK KNIGHT – Lindy Hemming
THE DUCHESS – Michael O'Connor
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD – Albert Wolsky

SOUND
CHANGELING – Walt Martin, Alan Robert Murray, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff
THE DARK KNIGHT – Lora Hirschberg, Richard King, Ed Novick, Gary Rizzo
QUANTUM OF SOLACE – Jimmy Boyle, Eddy Joseph, Chris Munro, Mike Prestwood Smith, Mark Taylor
SLUMDOG MILLIONARE – Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp
WALL•E – Ben Burtt, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Matthew Wood

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Eric Barba, Craig Barron, – Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams
THE DARK KNIGHT – Chris Corbould, Nick Davis, Paul Franklin, Tim Webber
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL – Pablo Helman
IRON MAN – Shane Patrick Mahan, John Nelson, Ben Snow
QUANTUM OF SOLACE – Chris Corbould, Kevin Tod Haug

MAKE UP & HAIR
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – Jean Black, Colleen Callaghan
THE DARK KNIGHT – Peter Robb-King
THE DUCHESS – Daniel Phillips, Jan Archibald
FROST/NIXON – Edouard Henriques, Kim Santantonio
MILK – Steven E. Anderson, Michael White

SHORT ANIMATION
CODSWALLOP – Greg McLeod, Myles McLeod
VARMINTS – Sue Goffe, Marc Craste
WALLACE AND GROMIT: A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH – Steve Pegram, Nick Park, Bob Baker

SHORT FILM
KINGSLAND #1 THE DREAMER – Kate Ogborn, Tony Grisoni
LOVE YOU MORE – Adrian Sturges, Sam Taylor-Wood, Patrick Marber
RALPH – Olivier Kaempfer, Alex Winckler
SEPTEMBER – Stewart le Maréchal, Esther May Campbell
VOYAGES D’AFFAIRES (THE BUSINESS TRIP) – Celine Quideau, Sean Ellis

So there you have it folks. Slumdog Millionaire domination and love will continue, and expect this to be a big night for Kate Winslet as well when the awards are announced. Up next: the granddaddy of them all, the whole reason why we follow awards race, the one award you need to win to be forever be put in the history books, the OSCAR. Oscar nominations will be announced next week, Thursday, January 22nd, 5:30 am PST!