AUSTRALIA

Baz Luhrmann's love letter to his home country is a sprawling, old-fashioned epic. Nicole Kidman is an English aristocrat who travels to 1930s Australia to sell a cattle ranch. A gruelling journey across country with a rough drover (Jackman) ends with the pair witnessing the Japanese bombardment of Darwin at the start of the Second World War. The Academy loves big, bold movies with vast emotional scope and vaulting cinematic ambitions.

And the prize goes to: Luhrmann for Best Direction

THE READER

Bare shoulders and lots of red

Red frocks dominated the Oscars red carpet, with actresses demonstrating old-fashioned glamour in feathers and jewels

Background

• Jon Stewart's best Oscar night gags

• Oscars 2008: all the winners

• Red carpet tented roof protects stars

Background

• Best Oscar night acceptance speeches

• The 10 most memorable Oscar speeches

Stephen Daldry directs an adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel, starring Kate Winslet as an illiterate woman who served as a concentration-camp guard. After the war, she becomes involved in a relationship with a 15-year-old boy who, several years later, attends her trial for war crimes. The Holocaust is always a hot-button topic for the Academy. The prize: Best Actress to Kate Winslet

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Richard Yates's bleak, brilliant novel set in 1950s suburban Connecticut is brought to the screen by the director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe. Mrs Mendes, aka Kate Winslet, stars with Leonardo DiCaprio, as a couple trying to work through their marital problems using the tried and tested formula of infidelity and martinis - a return to familiar Mendes territory.

The prize: Best Actress to Kate Winslet (if she doesn't win it for The Reader)

THE DARK KNIGHT

The director Christopher Nolan brought a darker, more dangerous sensibility to the Batman franchise with Batman Begins. Even before the death of Heath Ledger, Nolan's second film for the series was one of the most eagerly anticipated of the year's blockbusters. Now that the Joker is Ledger's last completed role, the fascination has increased exponentially.

The prize: Best Supporting Actor (posthumous) to Heath Ledger

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

The Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman makes his directorial debut with his most ambitious script to date. The quality cast features awards-magnet names such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a theatre director battling with creative and romantic crises who attempts to create a life-sized replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his next production.

The prize: Best Original Screenplay to Charlie Kaufman

BODY OF LIES

After the lukewarm response to films about the War on Terror, there is no predicting whether audiences will embrace Ridley Scott's Body of Lies, the story of a CIA operative sent to Jordan to track a high-ranking terrorist. But the cast - Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe - is causing ripples of excitement. The prize: Best Actor to Leonardo DiCaprio

FROST/NIXON

Peter Morgan adapts his own play for screen; Ron Howard directs and Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprise their stage roles as David Frost and Richard Nixon respectively in a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate interviews between Frost and Nixon.

The prizes: Best Actor to either Frank Langella or Michael Sheen. Best Adapted Screenplay to Peter Morgan

THE ARGENTINE/GUERRILLA

The director Steven Soderbergh has made two films about Che Guevara, both of which star Benicio Del Toro as the revolutionary idol. The Argentine tells of Guevara and a band of Cuban exiles toppling the Batista regime in Cuba in the mid-1950s; Guerrilla is set in 1964, when Guevara travelled to New York to address the UN. The more conservative voters are unlikely to respond to either, but a director of Soderbergh's standing is impossible to ignore.

The prize: Best Director for Soderbergh. Maybe

THE SOLOIST

The British director Joe Wright's third film stars Jamie Foxx, a regular nominee. The story of a homeless, schizophrenic musician who dreams of playing at Walt Disney Concert Hall seems to tick all the boxes when it comes to the voters' weakness for mawkish movies about mental illness.

The prize: Best Film

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Brad Pitt is no longer box-office gold, and the story - in which a man starts ageing slowly backwards from 50 - has an offbeat quirkiness that could unsettle the audience. But it has a quality supporting cast.

The prize: Best Supporting Actress for either Cate Blanchett or Tilda Swinton (again)

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