BEST DIRECTOR

Favorites

Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
Tim Burton, "Sweeney Todd"
Ethan and Joel Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Marc Forster, "The Kite Runner"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"
Sidney Lumet, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
James Mangold, "3:10 to Yuma"
Sean Penn, "Into the Wild"
Jason Reitman, "Juno"
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Ridley Scott, "American Gangster"
Denzel Washington, "The Great Debaters"
Joe Wright, "Atonement"

Spotlight: This award is often bestowed on directors as payback for past snubs, as Martin Scorsese ("The Departed") discovered last year. Now "Atonement" may benefit from the widespread belief that director Joe Wright should've been nominated for "Pride & Prejudice" in 2005. Tim Burton holds the biggest IOU. He's never been nominated for director despite helming such great films over two decades as "Beetlejuice," "Batman," "Edward Scissorhands," "Ed Wood" and "Big Fish." If "Sweeney Todd" is successful, it could be hailed as his greatest accomplishment: Not only did he hold the creative reins, he dared to reimagine the classic Broadway musical as a Hollywood horror flick.

Possible

Ben Affleck, "Gone Baby Gone"
John Carney, "Once"
David Cronenberg, "Eastern Promises"
Todd Haynes, "I'm Not There"
Ang Lee, "Lust, Caution"
Mira Nair, "The Namesake"
Mike Nichols, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Rob Reiner, "The Bucket List"
Adam Shankman, "Hairspray"
Robert Zemeckis, "Beowulf"

SPOTLIGHT: It took Ang Lee ("Lust, Caution") a long time to be embraced by the academy. He was snubbed for a directing nom in 1995 when his "Sense and Sensibility" was up for best picture, but he's been nominated since ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000) and even won ("Brokeback Mountain" in 2005). Now Lee may even be one of those esteemed veterans who gets nominated in the directors' race even though his film doesn't make the best picture list, as with Mike Leigh ("Vera Drake") and Pedro Almodóvar ("Talk to Her").

Longshots

Fatih Akin, "The Edge of Heaven"
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, "Ratatouille"
OlivierDahan, "La Vie en Rose"
David Fincher, "Zodiac"
Eran Kolirin, "The Band's Visit"
Cristian Mungiu, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, "Persepolis"
Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"
Julie Taymor, "Across the Universe"

SPOTLIGHT: Members of the directors' branch like to hail obscure helmers of artsy foreign films praised by critics. That's how Brazilian Fernando Meirelles scored a nomination for 2002's "City of God." This year, Cristian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and now the brusque drama about illegal abortions in Romania is a top Oscar contender for foreign-language film.

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