The 79thAnnual Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood. If you have not had the opportunity to read through the list of winners and nominees, here is a quick refresher:



Best Actor (Performance by an actor in a leading role)

Although Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal of a diamond smuggler in ?Blood Diamond? was expected to win the Oscar for best actor, the best actor award went to Forest Whittaker for his fantastic portrayal of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in ?The Last King of Scotland?. Will Smith was also nomination for his role in ?The Pursuit of Happyness?. But at the end of the day, Forest Whittaker's critically acclaimed performance won him the Academy Award for best performance by an actor in a leading role. Peter O'Toole's role in ?Venus? won him a surprise nomination.

Best Supporting Actor (Performance by an actor in a supporting role)

Although Alan Arkin's acting in ?Little Miss Sunshine? was fantastic and Arkin did full justice to his role, many people believed Mark Wahlberg's portrayal of an undercover cop in Martin Scorsese's ?The Departed? deserved an Academy Award. Other nominees included Eddie Murphy for ?Dreamgirls? and Djimon Hounsou for ?Blood Diamond?. Djimon Hounsou's portrayal of a Sierra Leone fugitive narrowly missed out on an Academy Award too.

Best Actress (Performance by an actress in a leading role)

Meryl Streep was expected to wins hand down for her portrayal of the icy Miranda Priestly in ?The devil wears Prada?. However, the Academy Award for best actress was awarded to Helen Mirren for her powerful portrayal of Queen Eilizabeth II in ?The Queen?. A surprise inclusion in the nominee list was Pen?lope Cruz for her role in ?Volver?.

Best Director (Achievement in directing)

None of the other films on the nominee's list were as commercially successful or critically acclaimed as Martin Scorsese's ?The Departed?. Other nominees included, Stephen Frears for ?The Queen?, Clint Eastwood for ?Letters from Iwo Jima? and Alejandro Gonz?lez I??rritu for ?Babel?. You might have guessed it by now, the winner was Martin Scorsese. The best director award was perhaps the easiest to judge and was not as competitive as other categories. Many critics believe that Scorsese's award was long overdue and ?The Departed? also won the Academy Award for Adapted screenplay (William Monahan).

Best Motion Picture of the year

This was perhaps the most competitive award, and the nominees list was a good mix of box office hits and critically acclaimed cinema. The nominees were I??rritu's ?Babel?, Martin Scorsese's ?The Departed?, Clint Eastwood's ?Letters from Iwo Jima?, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's ?Little Miss Sunshine? and Stephen Frears's ?The Queen?. Although, both ?Babel? and ?The Departed? were a commercial success, all nominated films were critically acclaimed. ?The Departed? is believed to have made an impact on critics and audiences for its star cast and direction. ?The Departed? was without a doubt the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful film of 2006, and rightly won a majority of the Academy Awards in 2007 including Best Motion picture.