The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognise excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors and writers, for the preceding year.

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on Thursday 16 May 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honour outstanding film achievements of 1927 and 1928. It was hosted by actor Douglas Fairbanks and director William C. DeMille.

The Academy Awards traditionally air live in South Africa on one of DStv's movie channels, with a delayed broadcast airing on the same night on M-Net.

The 80th Academy Awards ceremony took place on Sunday, February 24, 2008, and was hosted by Comedy Central's The Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

The 80th Academy Awards aired live in South Africa on DStv's M-Net Movies 1 channel on Monday 25 February 2008, at 03h00.

It was preceded by E! Entertainment's Live From the Red Carpet coverage, which aired from 01h00 - 03h00.

A delayed broadcast aired on M-Net on Monday 25 February, at 20h30.

2008 Nominations

Best Picture

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Director

Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Actor

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actor

Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James...
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Foreign Language Film

Beaufort, Israel
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Katyn, Poland
Mongol, Kazakhstan
12, Russia

Best Animated Feature Film

Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

Best Adapted Screenplay

Atonement
Away from Her
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Original Screenplay

Juno
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

Best Music (score)

Atonement
The Kite Runner
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma

Best Music (song)

Falling Slowly - Once (performed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova)
Happy Working Song - Enchanted (performed by Amy Adams)
Raise It Up - August Rush (performed by Jamia Simone Nash and Impact Repertory Theatre)
So Close - Enchanted (performed by Jon McLaughlin)
That's How You Know - Enchanted (performed by Amy Adams)

Best Documentary Feature

No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

Best Documentary Short Subject

Freeheld
La Corona (The Crown)
Salim Baba
Sari's Mother

Best Visual Effects

The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers

Best Cinematography

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Art Direction

American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Best Animated Short Film

I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
Meme Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Peter & the Wolf

Best Short Film

At Night
Il Supplente
Le Mozart des Pickpockets
Tanghi Argentini
The Tonto Woman

Best Costume Design

Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Make-up

La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Best Sound Mixing

The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

Sound Editing

The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

Best Film Editing

The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

2008 Presenters

Amy Adams
Jessica Alba
Alan Arkin
Cate Blanchett
Josh Brolin
Steve Carell
George Clooney
Penelope Cruz
Miley Cyrus
Patrick Dempsey
Cameron Diaz
Colin Farrell
Harrison Ford
Jennifer Garner
Tom Hanks
Anne Hathaway
Katherine Heigl
Jonah Hill
Jennifer Hudson
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
Nicole Kidman
Queen Latifah
James McAvoy
Helen Mirren
Seth Rogen
Martin Scorsese
Hilary Swank
John Travolta
Denzel Washington
Forest Whitaker
Renee Zellweger

About the Awards

Far from the eagerly anticipated and globally televised event it is today, the first Academy Awards ceremony took place out of the public eye during an Academy banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Two hundred and seventy people attended the 16 May, 1929 dinner in the hotel's Blossom Room; guest tickets cost $5. It was a long affair filled with speeches, but Academy President Douglas Fairbanks made quick work of handing out the statuettes.

There was little suspense when the awards were presented that night: the recipients had already been announced three months earlier. That all changed the following year, however, when the Academy decided to keep the results secret until the ceremony but gave a list in advance to newspapers for publication at 11 p.m. on the night of the Awards.

This policy continued until 1940 when, much to the Academy's consternation, the Los Angeles Times broke the embargo and published the names of the winners in its evening edition – which was readily available to guests arriving for the ceremony. That prompted the Academy in 1941 to adopt the sealed-envelope system still in use today.

Fifteen statuettes were awarded at the first ceremony for cinematic achievements in 1927 and 1928. The first Best Actor winner was acclaimed German tragedian Emil Jannings, who had to return to Europe before the ceremony.

The Academy granted his request to receive the trophy early, making his statuette the very first Academy Award ever presented.

The first presentation was the only one to escape a media audience; by the second year, enthusiasm for the Awards was such that a Los Angeles radio station produced a live one-hour broadcast of the event. The ceremony has been broadcast ever since.

The Academy continued to hand out the awards at banquets – held at the Ambassador and Biltmore hotels – until 1942, when increased attendance made these dinner ceremonies impractical. Starting with the 16th Oscar ceremony, which was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the event has always been held at a theatre.

In 1953, the first televised Oscar ceremony enabled millions throughout the United States and Canada to watch the proceedings. Broadcasting in colour began in 1966, affording home viewers a chance to fully experience the dazzling allure of the event.

Since 1969, the Oscar show has been broadcast internationally, now reaching movie fans in over 200 countries.