Photo: Ishika Mohan/Fox Searchlight Pictures

The Nominees
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire 

It's a typical roster for Oscar's top award: some high-prestige adaptations (Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader), a handsome biopic (Milk), and a crowd-pleasing wild card (Slumdog Millionaire).

O's Winner Is...
Slumdog all the way: It's got the most awards-season momentum and the most passionate admirers.

Missing in Action
Last summer's dystopian fable Wall-E is playful, tender, totally beguiling—and inexplicably absent from this list, though it will almost certainly pick up a consolation prize in the form of Best Animated Feature. Among the extras on the three-disc special edition: commentary from director Andrew Stanton, a short film starring the robot-welder Burn-E, and alternate scenes that point toward the darker detours the story might have taken. Best of all, the DVD includes the short Presto (which served as Wall-E's warm-up act in theaters), a laugh-out-loud vignette of a magician and his unruly rabbit-in-a-hat.