The 2007 Academy Awards were rather unusual in that the front-runners for Best Picture were both ultra-violent films, the type that they said could never win a Best Picture Oscar, yet one of them did while the other took home the Best Actor trophy.

The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men has three main characters: a greedy hunter (Josh Brolin); an aging lawman (Tommy Lee Jones) and a psychopathic killer (Javier Bardem), While Brolin and Jones received excellent notices for their performances, it was Bardem who was singled out for awards glory, easily taking most of the year’s Best Supporting Actor awards honors, including the Oscar. The film also won Oscars for Best Picture; Director and Adapted Screenplay. It had also been nominated for Best Cinematography; Editing; Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

Based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil!, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood had as its central character a ruthless oil prospector who hid his greed behind a facade of a caring family man. Daniel Day-Lewis’ brilliant portrayal of the evil man earned him second his Best Actor Oscar. The film also won for Best Cinematography and had been nominated for Best Picture; Director; Adapted Screenplay; Editing; Art Direction and Sound Editing.

Ian McEwan’s celebrated novel of the same name was the source of Joe Wright’s Atonement, an epic film about a thirteen year-old girl who falsely accuses an innocent man of raping her cousin, then spends the remainder of her life trying to make amends. The film’s main conceit is that the girl is played by three different actresses who are made to resemble one another – Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave – with Ronan, only twelve years old at the time of filming, receiving the lion’s share of the notices and the film’s only acting nomination although both Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the romantic leads and Garai and Redgrave were also award-worthy. The film was also nominated for Best Picture; Adapted Screenplay; Cinematography; Art Direction; Costume Design and Score, winning for the latter.

Thrillers don’t usually receive a Best Picture nomination, but Terry Gilroy’s Michael Clayton not only tickled the public’s fancy, but scored a nomination in the top category, as well as racking up nominations for Best Director; Original Screenplay; Score and three of its actors, George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton who took home the award for Best Supporting Actress.

Comedies are another rare breed among Oscar’s Best Picture nominees, but Jason Reitman’s unexpected hit, Juno proved popular enough to do just that. The film about a pregnant teenager searching for the right couple to adopt her unborn baby was also nominated for Best Director; Actress – newcomer Ellen Page and Original Screenplay, winning the latter category for Diablo Cody, about whom much was made of her former jobs as a phone sex operator and stripper.

Other films Oscar liked this year included The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Into the Wild; Away from Her; La Vie en Rose; I’m Not There; Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sweeney Todd; Eastern Promises; In the Valley of Elah; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; 3:10 to Yuma; Gone Baby Gone; American Gangster; Lars and the Real Girl; Ratatouille and Persepolis.

The directors of four of the five Best Picture nominees having been invited to the party by the directors’ branch of the Academy, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’s Julian Schnabel took the fifth spot over Atonement’s Joe Wright. His inspiring true story about a Parisian stroke victim was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay; Cinematography and Editing.

The true story of Christopher McCandless, a top student and athlete, who journeys to the Alaskan wilderness where he freezes to death, might seem like an off-putting treatise, but Sean Penn in directing his fourth film has constructed an awe-inspiring epic about the young man’s journey. Emile Hirsch is spellbinding in the role and veteran Hal Holbrook is magnificent in an Oscar nominated performance as the lonely old man who wants to adopt him. The film was also nominated for Best Editing.

Alzheimer’s Disease is not a popular subject for films, but handled right as in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, audiences, as well as critics, will take notice. From Polley’s Oscar nominated screenplay to Gordon Pinsent’s portrayal of a grief stricken husband and especially Julie Christie’s portrayal of the confused victim of the disease, the film soars. Christie’s million watt smile can still light up a screen even when her character is suffering from a devastating disease.

Oscar voters, however, it seems will always choose mimicry over subtlety, Christie, the odds-on favorite to take home a second Oscar all year long, lost in the end to French actress Marion Cotillard for her impersonation of legendary singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

Singing was popular this year. Cate Blanchett, not known for her singing, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress her stunt casting as Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, a role she shared with five other actors including Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Blanchett also achieved the rare distinction of having been nominated in both female acting categories this year, having been nominated as Best Actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age in which she achieved the even rarer distinction of being nominated for the same role twice, having first been nominated for portraying the Virgin Queen nine years earlier.

A more traditional movie musical was Tim Burton’s film of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, a highly anticipated film which proved to be a disappointment to Sondheim purists. Still, Johnny Depp’s performance in the title role was enough to earn him his third Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The film was also nominated for Best Art Direction (which it won) and Best Costume Design.

Depp’s competition, along with winner Daniel Day-Lewis and the previously mentioned George Clooney, included Viggo Mortensen in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises and Tommy Lee Jones in Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah. A bit of controversy was caused by Casey Affleck’s nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category as opposed to the Best Actor category for his starring role in The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, but Affleck, who played Ford, was campaigned in that category while co-star Brad Pitt, who played James, was campaigned in the lead even though his part was marginally smaller than the lesser known Affleck’s.

The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was also nominated for Best Cinematography, was one of two high-profile westerns to receive Oscar nominations this year. The other was James Mangold’s remake of 3:10 to Yuma with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the role played by Glenn Ford and Van Heflin in Delmer Daves’ 1957 original.

Casey Affleck’s big brother Ben made his directing debut with the gangster drama, Gone Baby Gone, which netted a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Amy Ryan as a grieving mother. Another gangster film, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, also received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for veteran Ruby Dee as Denzel Washington’s mother. That film was also nominated for Best Art Direction.

Ryan Gosling failed to pick up a second Best Actor nomination in a row for Lars and the Real Girl, but the bittersweet comedy about a man in love with a blow-up doll was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

With five nominations, Pixar’s cute and cuddly Ratatouille’s win for Best Animated Feature over the insightful French film, Persepolis, was expected even though the latter film based on an Iranian woman’s coming-of-age in her country’s changing regime was the more critically acclaimed film.

All films discussed have been released on DVD in the U.S.

This week’s new DVD releases include Water for Elephants and Crazy, Stupid Love.