Accessibility links
79th Annual Academy Awards This year's Oscar race features a heavyhitting best actress category and a diverse group of films among the nominees, from Babel to Dreamgirls to Little Miss Sunshine. Our coverage of the awards includes interviews with the nominees, analysis of the competition and a contest for NPR.org readers.
thumbnail
Special Series

79th Annual Academy Awards

Our coverage of the awards includes interviews, analysis and a contest for NPR.org readers.

'West Bank Story' Tells Tale of Star-Crossed Lovers

West Bank Story, this year's Oscar winner for best live action short film, is a takeoff on West Side Story and features a star-crossed love affair between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian woman.

'West Bank Story' Tells Tale of Star-Crossed Lovers

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7606701/7606988" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Why Oscar Loves a Biography

Helen Mirren won an Oscar last night for playing Queen Elizabeth II, and Forest Whitaker won for portraying Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. This decade has seen the most acting Oscars handed out for performers playing real people.

Why Oscar Loves a Biography

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7602159/7602160" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Scorsese Takes Home Oscar

Martin Scorsese won an Academy Award for best director Sunday night, after five nominations but no wins. His film, The Departed, also won best picture. Other winners included Jennifer Hudson, Alan Arkin, Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren.

Scorsese Takes Home Oscar

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7602156/7602157" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Scorsese, 'Departed' Grab Top Oscars

After decades of success, director Martin Scorsese has his first Oscar. His film The Departed also won Best Picture. Among actors, Forest Whitaker was honored for playing Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, Helen Mirren for The Queen.

Scorsese, 'Departed' Grab Top Oscars

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7599142/7599150" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

'Two Hands,' an Oscar Nominee with Heart

Nathaniel Kahn's film Two Hands, a film about pianist Leon Fleisher's 30-year struggle to return to the concert stage, is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

'Two Hands,' an Oscar Nominee with Heart

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7549885/7575704" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Oscar-Nominated Scores: 'Notes On a Scandal'

NPR's movie-music expert Andy Trudeau does a roundup of this year's five Oscar-nominated scores and profiles one more composer: Philip Glass for Notes on a Scandal.

Oscar-Nominated Scores: 'Notes On a Scandal'

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7550328/7570812" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Has Best Actor Become Best Impersonator?

A rash of recent Oscar winners have been rewarded for playing real people, from Ray Charles to Truman Capote to June Carter Cash. Are the acting categories turning into best imitation of a real celebrity life?

Has Best Actor Become Best Impersonator?

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7593261/7593262" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Oscar Shorts Are Tall on Talent

Some Oscar nominees don't get much attention on the red carpet. A quick look at the nominees for Best Short Documentary show subjects ranging from AIDS orphans to gifted high school artists.

Oscar Shorts Are Tall on Talent

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7557421/7572399" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Oscar Rules for Documentary Films to Change

From blockbusters like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to smaller films like Deliver Us From Evil, documentaries are drawing large audiences. But some worry that the Academy's new rules could hamper that trend.

Oscar Rules for Documentary Films to Change

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7577574/7577581" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Analysis

Glimpsing a Queen's Soul: 'The Stag Scene'

There is a moment in the Oscar-nominated film The Queen that is known to some simply as "The Stag Scene." In the sequence, Helen Mirren, as Elizabeth II, sits on a hill in the lush Balmoral countryside, brought to tears. Then she sees the stag.

Glimpsing a Queen's Soul: 'The Stag Scene'

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7577583/7577590" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Sit Up and Watch: Ellen Is Hosting the Oscars

Comic Ellen DeGeneres is the latest choice to host the annual Academy Awards ceremony, set for Sunday night. She talks about facing the fun and the folly of the world's highest-profile hosting job, and what she's doing to prepare for the gig.

Sit Up and Watch: Ellen Is Hosting the Oscars

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7525439/7529981" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Oscar's Animated Shorts and Traditional Technique

This year's Oscar nominees in the animated short category include two traditionally animated films, The Little Match Girl and The Danish Poet. Hand-drawn animation has always enjoyed success in the short-film Oscar category.

Oscar's Animated Shorts and Traditional Technique

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7570929/7570930" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Review

A Quick Look at Oscars' Shorts

Fresh Air

Oscar contenders in the two categories devoted to short films — animated and live-action — include a new take on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl, an alien abductor in training (Lifted), a brief musical comedy set among falafel stands (West Bank Story) and the story of a door-to-door Mormon evangelist in love with a married woman.

A Quick Look at Oscars' Shorts

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7569603/7569612" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Hollywood Jobs

Costume Designer Dips into Hollywood's Closet

Hollywood costume designer Julie Weiss has clothed celebrities from Marlon Brando to Demi Moore. She shares some favorite stories, including how she earned an Oscar nomination for her designs in the 2002 film Frida.

Costume Designer Dips into Hollywood's Closet

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7474294/7537397" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

What's Behind Oscar-Worthy Sound Editing?

The best sound editing award at the Oscars may not be the sexiest category, but every filmmaker would say good sound is an essential part of a movie. Sound editor Lon Bender, who nabbed an Academy Award a decade ago for Braveheart is nominated this year for his work on Blood Diamond.

What's Behind Oscar-Worthy Sound Editing?

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7520589/7520594" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Producing the Academy Awards Show

It takes more than movie stars and a celebrity host to put on the Oscars ceremony, which will take place Sunday night. We went backstage at the Oscars with producer Laura Ziskin and her crew.

Producing the Academy Awards Show

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7501335/7501336" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Opinion

For Thankful Windbags, an Oscar-Cam Awaits

This year at the Academy Awards, in order to keep the ceremony moving along, award winners will have an opportunity to thank people after they leave the stage. They'll be using a "thank you" cam that will broadcast messages on the Web. Rob Long, a Hollywood writer and host of Martini Shot on member-station KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., says the thank-you cam is a bad idea.

For Thankful Windbags, an Oscar-Cam Awaits

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7501338/7501341" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Oscar-Nominated Scores: 'Labyrinth, 'German'

In this series on Oscar-nominated scores, NPR's movie-film expert Andy Trudeau takes Liane Hansen through two more of the nominees: Javier Navarrete for Pan's Labyrinth and Thomas Newman for The Good German.

Oscar-Nominated Scores: 'Labyrinth, 'German'

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/7402530/7466806" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Browse archive or search npr.org