Hard to believe it's been 10 years. I can still remember being on this forum at 2am in the morning along with god knows how many other fans, all collectively anticipating the nominations. And honestly, we had every right to expect the film to be nominated. It had garnered PGA and DGA and a whole bunch of nominations, a whole batch of nominations for Ledger alone, and every other supposed Oscar film that coveted that final 5th spot failed to win over critics and audiences. Everyone, literally everyone, had TDK in. The only real competition was WALL-E, which honestly wouldn't have been a poor choice to have beaten TDK to that fifth spot.
The mood was a level of excitement that was off the charts, probably bigger than the release of the film itself. Then the nominations came out. A bunch of tech nods, one for Ledger, all was going well until the Screenplay nomination came where TDK was overlooked. I remember being shocked when the names were read out and TDK wasn't there for Adapted Screenplay. But then the real kick to the balls, no Director, no Best Picture. The film did so much right, garnered so much good will, but the Academy just couldn't do it, they couldn't get past the cowl and clown make up.
