Stephen Vaughan and DC Comics; Ash Knotek/Snappers/ZUMA PressThe Heath Ledger Oscar moment seems ever closer.
The late Dark Knight star earned the near-mandatory Screen Actors Guild nod as nominations for the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced this morning.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were among the other top film nominees; Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood weren't.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire will vie for SAG's equivalent of Oscar's Best Picture honor: best motion-picture cast.
A certain Batman blockbuster was notable, if not surprising, in its absence from that lineup.
Just as with last week's Golden Globe nominations, The Dark Knight was denied a shot at the top film prize—and a chance to bolster its Oscar credentials.
The Dark Knight's strongest Oscar contender continues to be Ledger, who's up for SAG's supporting actor honor against Milk's Josh Brolin, Tropic Thunder's Robert Downey Jr. (no longer a surprise awards-season entry), Doubt's Philip Seymour Hoffman and Slumdog Millionaire's young star, Dev Patel.
As at the Globes, Pitt's up for lead actor for Benjamin Button. His competition: Richard Jenkins, for the art-house hit The Visitor; Frank Langella, for Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn, for Milk, and Mickey Rourke, for The Wrestler.
Jolie matched real-life partner Pitt's nomination with one of her own as lead actress for Changeling. Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Meryl Streep (Doubt) and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road) fill out the field.
Winslet picked up a second individual nod in the supporting actress field for The Reader. Also nominated in that category: Doubt's Amy Adams and Viola Davis, Benjamin Button's Taraji P. Henson and, per usual, Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Penélope Cruz.
Doubt led with five overall nods. Milk and Benjamin Button scored three each.
Last year, all but five of SAG's 20 individual acting nominees went on to earn Oscar nods—a stat that can't be comforting to the awards-season managers for Eastwood, who isn't in the SAG running for Gran Torino, and DiCaprio, who wasn't nominated for Revolutionary Road, as he was at the Globes.
Other notable Globe nominees who didn't cut it at the SAGs: Tom Cruise, denied for Tropic Thunder; The Reader and Revolutionary Road, denied in the outstanding cast category; and critical favorite Sally Hawkins of Happy-Go-Lucky.
Though shut out of the best cast race, The Dark Knight did pick up a stunt ensemble nod. But then so did Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man and Wanted, and nobody expects those movies to vie for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Actors' strike or no, the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards are scheduled to be presented Jan. 25.
Check out the notable nominees in our 2009 SAG Awards photo gallery!
(Originally published Dec. 18, 2008, at 6:26 a.m. PT.)