Won For: The Reader Should Have Won For: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind The Reader is probably most famous at this point for being the film that many people think robbed The Dark Knight of a spot in the Best Picture race and helped encourage the Academy to expand the field the next year. But it's also the film for which Kate Winslet won her long awaited Oscar for Best Actress. Voters love to reward actors for undergoing physical transformations, and Winslet underwent long makeup sessions to portray the older version of her character, Hanna Schmitz. The film's subject matter, the Holocaust, also lent a certain amount of prestige to the role. But many believe that this was an instance of rewarding an actor because he or she was "overdue" - it was Winslet's sixth Oscar nomination. While Kate Winslet finally broke through for the win with The Reader, it is for her incredible turn in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that she should have won her Oscar. The film, which was written by the incomparable Charlie Kaufman, is one of the most bizarre and unique films of the new millennium. Winslet's performance as Clementine Kruczynski - opposite Jim Carrey's Joel Barish - is poignant, weird, and totally wonderful. It is a stunning character portrayal that, whilst rightfully nominated, may have been too "out there" for many Academy voters to fully embrace.
