Winners and nominees
Best Film
Best Director
- Lee Daniels – Precious
- Clint Eastwood – Invictus
- Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
- Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
Lee Louis Daniels is an American film and television writer, director, and producer. He produced Monster's Ball and directed Precious, which received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director; it won two of the awards.
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, or simply Precious, is a 2009 American drama film, directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels. The script was written by Geoffrey S. Fletcher, adapted from the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, and Mariah Carey. This film marked the acting debut of Sidibe who portrays a young woman struggling against poverty and abuse.
Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor, filmmaker, musician, and politician. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, he rose to international fame with his role as the Man with No Name in Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.
Best Actor
- Colin Firth – A Single Man
- Morgan Freeman – Invictus
- Viggo Mortensen – The Road
- Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Colin Andrew Firth is an English actor who has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. In 2010, Firth's portrayal of King George VI in Tom Hooper's The King's Speech won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
A Single Man is a 2009 American drama film based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. It is directed by Tom Ford in his directorial debut and stars Colin Firth, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of George Falconer, a depressed gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962.
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, film narrator, and philanthropist. Freeman won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby (2004), and he has received Oscar nominations for his performances in Street Smart (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Invictus (2009). He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Best Actress
- Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
- Maya Rudolph – Away We Go
- Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
- Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia
Sandra Annette Bullock is an American actress, producer, and philanthropist. She was the highest paid actress in the world in 2010 and 2014. In 2015, Bullock was chosen as People's Most Beautiful Woman, and was included in Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. Bullock is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
The Blind Side is a 2009 American biographical sports drama film written and directed by John Lee Hancock, based on the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. The storyline features Michael Oher, an offensive lineman who was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). The film follows Oher from his impoverished upbringing, through his years at Wingate Christian School, his adoption by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, to his position as one of the most highly coveted prospects in college football, then finally becoming a first-round pick of the Ravens.
Maya Khabira Rudolph is an American actress, voice actress, comedian, and singer. Rudolph first gained prominence in the mid-1990s as a member of the alternative rock band The Rentals before joining The Groundlings improv troupe later in the decade. In 2000, Rudolph became a cast member on the NBC television series Saturday Night Live and subsequently appeared in supporting roles in films such as 50 First Dates (2004) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006).
Best Supporting Actor
- Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
- Anthony Mackie – The Hurt Locker
- Alfred Molina – An Education
- Stanley Tucci – Lovely Bones
Woodrow Tracy Harrelson is an American actor, comedian, and playwright. His breakout role came in 1985 as bartender Woody Boyd in the television sitcom Cheers. He later became known for his portrayals of Billy Hoyle in White Men Can't Jump (1992), Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers (1994), and Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). More recent roles include Tallahassee in Zombieland (2009), Capt. Tony Stone in The Messenger (2009), Dave Brown in Rampart (2011), Charlie Frost in 2012 (2009), Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), Merritt McKinney in the Now You See Me film series (2013–2016), the Colonel in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Bill Willoughby in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Tobias Beckett in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and Maney Gault in The Highwaymen (2019).
The Messenger is a 2009 war drama film starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi, and Jena Malone. It is the directorial debut of Oren Moverman, who also wrote the screenplay with Alessandro Camon.
Anthony Dwane Mackie is an American actor who has been featured in films, television series and Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Drowning Crow, McReele, A Soldier's Play and Carl Hancock Rux's Talk, for which he won an Obie Award in 2002.
Best Supporting Actress
- Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
- Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
- Julianne Moore – A Single Man
- Samantha Morton – The Messenger
Vera Ann Farmiga is an American actress, film director, and producer.
Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner, based on the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. The story is centered on corporate "downsizer" Ryan Bingham and his travels. Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, and Danny McBride also star. Filming was primarily in St. Louis, Missouri, which substituted for a number of other cities. Several scenes were filmed in Detroit, Omaha, Las Vegas and Miami.
Anna Cooke Kendrick is an American actress and singer. She began her career as a child actress in theater productions. Her first starring role was in the 1998 Broadway musical High Society. She later made her feature film debut in the musical comedy Camp (2003).
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Screenplay
Best Breakthrough Performance
Best Cast
Best Animated Film
Best Documentary Film
Best Foreign Language Film
- Sin Nombre • Mexico
- Broken Embraces • Spain
- Red Cliff • China
- Summer Hours • France
- The White Ribbon • Austria-Germany
Best Art Direction