Winners and nominees
Best Film
Best Director
- Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris
- Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
- Alexander Payne – The Descendants
- Nicolas Winding Refn – Drive
Heywood "Woody" Allen is an American director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. He began his career as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third-greatest comedian.
Midnight in Paris is a 2011 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. Set in Paris, the film follows Gil Pender, a screenwriter, who is forced to confront the shortcomings of his relationship with his materialistic fiancée and their divergent goals, which become increasingly exaggerated as he travels back in time each night at midnight. The movie explores themes of nostalgia and modernism.
Michel Hazanavicius is a French film director, producer, screenwriter and film editor best known for his 2011 film, The Artist, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards. It also won him the Academy Award for Best Director. He also directed spy film parodies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009).
Best Actor
- George Clooney – The Descendants as Matt King
- Jean Dujardin – The Artist as George Valentin
- Michael Fassbender – Shame as Brandon Sullivan
- Brad Pitt – Moneyball as Billy Beane
- Michael Shannon – Take Shelter as Curtis LaForche
Jean Dujardin is a French actor, comedian, humorist and television director. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in Paris before guest starring in comedic television programmes and films. He first came to prominence with the cult TV series Un gars, une fille, in which he starred alongside his lover Alexandra Lamy, before gaining success in film with movies such as Brice de Nice, Michel Hazanavicius's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and its sequel OSS 117: Lost in Rio, as well as 99 Francs.
The Artist is a 2011 French comedy-drama film in the style of a black-and-white silent film. Written, directed, and co-edited by Michel Hazanavicius, and produced by Thomas Langmann, the film stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood, between 1927 and 1932, and focuses on the relationship of an older silent film star and a rising young actress as silent cinema falls out of fashion and is replaced by the "talkies".
Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. His feature film debut was in the fantasy war epic 300 (2007) as a Spartan warrior; his earlier roles included various stage productions, as well as starring roles on television such as in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and the Sky One fantasy drama Hex (2004–05). He first came to prominence for his role as IRA activist Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008), for which he won a British Independent Film Award. Subsequent roles include in the independent film Fish Tank (2009), as a Royal Marines lieutenant in Inglourious Basterds (2009), as Edward Rochester in the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method (2011), as the sentient android David 8 in Prometheus (2012) and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), and in the musical comedy-drama Frank (2014) as an eccentric musician loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom.
Best Actress
Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. She is particularly known for her work in small-scale independent productions with dark or tragic themes. The recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, Williams has been nominated for four Academy Awards and one Tony Award.
My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges. It stars Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, and Judi Dench. Based on two books by Colin Clark, it depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl, which starred Marilyn Monroe (Williams) and Laurence Olivier (Branagh). The film focuses on the week during the shooting of the 1957 film when Monroe was escorted around London by Clark (Redmayne), after her husband Arthur Miller had returned to the United States.
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and was emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. More than half a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon.
- Viola Davis – The Help as Aibileen Clarke
- Elizabeth Olsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene as Martha
- Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady as Margaret Thatcher
- Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin as Eve Khatchadourian
Viola Davis is an American actress and producer. She is the first black actor to have won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award in acting, named the Triple Crown of Acting.
The Help is a 2011 period drama film written and directed by Tate Taylor and adapted from Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name. The film features an ensemble cast, including Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Camp, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer and Emma Stone. The film and novel recount the story of young white woman and aspiring journalist Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. The story focuses on her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. In an attempt to become a legitimate journalist and writer, Skeeter decides to write a book from the point of view of the maids, exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families. Black domestic workers in 1960s America were referred to as "the help", hence the title of the putative journalistic expose, the novel and the film.
Elizabeth Chase Olsen is an American actress. She is known for portraying Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her breakthrough came in 2011 when she starred in the independent thriller drama Martha Marcy May Marlene, for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead, among other awards. She subsequently starred in the films Silent House (2011), Liberal Arts (2012), Oldboy (2013), Godzilla (2014), I Saw the Light (2015), Ingrid Goes West (2017) and Wind River (2017).
Best Supporting Actor
- Albert Brooks – Drive as Bernie Rose
- Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn as Laurence Olivier
- John Hawkes – Martha Marcy May Marlene as Patrick
- Christopher Plummer – Beginners as Hal
- Andy Serkis – Rise of the Planet of the Apes as Caesar
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh is a Northern Irish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and in 2015 succeeded Richard Attenborough as its president. He has both directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles.
John Hawkes is an American actor, known for his portrayal of the merchant Sol Star on the HBO series Deadwood, Dustin Powers on Eastbound & Down, backwoods meth addict Teardrop Dolly in Winter's Bone, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and his Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated portrayal of Mark O'Brien in The Sessions. Other notable works of his include Martha Marcy May Marlene, Low Down and From Dusk Till Dawn.
Best Supporting Actress
- Octavia Spencer – The Help as Minny Jackson
- Bérénice Bejo – The Artist as Peppy Miller
- Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids as Megan
- Carey Mulligan – Shame as Sissy Sullivan
- Shailene Woodley – The Descendants as Alexandra King
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cast
Best Animated Film
Best Documentary Film
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Art Direction
Best Cinematography
Best Score
- The Artist – Ludovic Bource
