The 77th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2004, were held on February 27, 2005, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. They were hosted by comedian Chris Rock.

The nominees were announced on January 25, 2005. Martin Scorsese's biopic of the eccentric Howard Hughes, The Aviator, led the pack with eleven nominations including Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture. Marc Forster's Finding Neverland and Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby each had seven nominations.

News and recap

• As of February 27 2005, the field of Best Picture nominees did not include a bonafide blockbuster at the U.S. box office. For the first time in 20 years, and likely only the second time in history, none of the nominees for Best Picture was among the year's top ten releases in box office at the time of the nominations, and as a group they most probably had the lowest box-office performance of any Best Picture field in history. To date, The Aviator has been the highest earner with $93.7 million in domestic box office receipts. It ranks as the 24th highest grosser of 2004. This is followed by Ray at $74.9 million and Million Dollar Baby at $64.7 million.
• There was a considerable amount of controversy surrounding the omission of political-themed documentaries from the Best Documentary Feature Film category. However, this was not necessarily an oversight on the part of the Academy, as many of the candidates were rendered ineligible. The popular and controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 was intentionally withheld from submission in the Best Documentary Feature Film category by producer Michael Moore, in order to submit it for broadcast on network television. Popular political documentaries Control Room and The Corporation were rendered ineligible by the fact that they had been broadcast in their entirety on network television within 9 months of their U.S. theatrical release.
• The popular Motorcycle Diaries was not selected by any country as its official nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, as the crew, director, cast and filming locations were all affiliated with different nations. As it had no specific country of origin, no country was willing to make it their official selection for the category.

Notable quotes

• "I don't want to take my time—I want to get off the stage." –Charlie Kaufman
• "My grandma used to sit down and talk to me, she said I want you to be a southern gentlemen, and she still talks to me, only now in my dreams. And I can't wait to go to sleep tonight because we've got a lot to talk about. I love you." –Jamie Foxx

Winners

See also: 77th Academy Awards nominees

Feature Films

Acting

Writing

Et al.

Achievement in art direction

• The Aviator Art Direction: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo

Achievement in makeup

• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Valli O'Reilly and Bill Corso

Achievement in costume design

• The Aviator Sandy Powell

Achievement in film editing

• The Aviator Thelma Schoonmaker

Achievement in visual effects

• Spider-Man 2 John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier

Best live action short film

• Wasp Andrea Arnold

Best animated short film

• Ryan Chris Landreth

Achievement in cinematography

• The Aviator Robert Richardson

Achievement in sound mixing

• Ray Scott Millan, Greg Orloff, Bob Beemer and Steve Cantamessa

Achievement in sound editing

• The Incredibles Michael Silvers and Randy Thom

Best documentary short subject

• Robert Hudson and Bobby Houston

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• Finding Neverland Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• "Al Otro Lado Del Río " from The Motorcycle Diaries Music and Lyric by Jorge Drexler
  

Achievement in directing

• Million Dollar Baby Clint Eastwood

Breakdown

(Awards won/nominations)

Special honors

• Roger Mayer , president of Turner Entertainment and head of the Motion Picture and Television Fund , received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
• Director Sidney Lumet was awarded an Honorary Oscar.

Networks

The show was broadcast on the following networks worldwide:

• A1 (Macedonia)
• Alfa TV (Cyprus)
• ABC
• ART TV (Sri Lanka)
• BBTV Channel 7 (Thailand)
• BNT Channel 1 (Bulgaria)
• Canal 4 (Uruguay)
• Canal Plus
• Canal + (Spain)
• CANAL+ Cyfrowy Sp. z.o.o. (Poland)
• Channel 1+1
• CCTV Movie Channel (China)
• Channel 2 (Nicaragua)
• Channel 2 (Peru)
• Channel 3 Guatemala
• Channel 4 Finland
• Channel 6 Trinidad and Tobago
• Channel 7 Costa Rica
• Channel 7 Guatemala
• Channel 9 (Paraguay)
• Channel 11 Guatemala
• Channel 13 Guatemala
• Channel 13 (Panama)
• Cinemania (Spain)
• Cinenova (Holland and Flemish-speaking Belgium
• Compania (Honduras)
• Cruise Liners Close Circuit 9 SHIPS-7 CARIBB, 2 WEST COAST, HOLLAND AMERICA 9 SHIPS, CURNARD 1 SHIP
• CTV
• DR2 Denmark
• Filmnet (Greece)
• Globo TV (Brazil)

• HBO Czech Republic
• HRT Croatia
• Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation
• Indosiar (Indonesia)
• Latin America
• LTV (Latvia)
• Lumiere TV (Cyprus)
• M-Net
• National Committee of TV and Radio Armenia
• Nelonen (Finland)
• NHK DBS (Japan)
• Channel 9 Australia
• NRK (Norway)
• NTV or CNBC-E Turkey
• OCN (South Korea)
• ORF (Austria)
• Pearl Channel (Hong Kong)
• Pro 7 (Germany)
• Pro TV (Romania)
• Radio TV of Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Red TV (Chile)
• RCN TV (Colombia)
• RPN9 (Philippines)
• RTE Ireland
• RTL Klub (Hungary)
• Rustavi 2 TV Georgia Republic
• Sky Italia S.R.L. (Italy)
• Sky One and Sky Movies United Kingdom
• Sky Television (New Zealand)
• Star Movies Asia
• Star Movies (South Asia, Saudi Arabia, UAE)
• SVT (Sweden)
• Teleamazonas Ecuador
• TNT Latin America
• TV 2 (New Zealand)
• Mexico (Channel 13)
• Mexico (Channel 7)
• TV3 (Malaysia) or 8TV (Malaysia)
• TV3 Estonia
• TVI (Portugal)
• UBC (Thailand channel)
• Unitel Bolivia
• Channel 4 (Venezuela)
• Belgium VTM
• WAPA (Puerto Rico)
• WOWOW (Japan)

See also

• Academy Awards
• List of Academy Awards ceremonies
• History of cinema
• 2004 Golden Raspberry Awards

External links

• Yahoo! Movies - 77th Academy Awards
• Internet Movie Database (IMDb): Road to the Oscars
• Academy Awards Official Web Site
• Global Language Monitor: 'Pinot' is Top HollyWORD: Oscars 2005
• E! Online: Oscars 2005