| @jeffthepardoner: With all due respect, if the Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes are subjects with which you are familiar, you would do best to confine yourself to them. The Academy Awards are held in February or March of Year X, but the Awards are the Year X-1 Oscars. This is for the "pretty simple" reason that the award is honoring the films of Year X-1. It makes no sense to refer to The King's Speech as Best Picture of 2011, since it is not a 2011 film; its competition consisted of the other films released in 2010, and it emerged as (according to Academy voters) 2010's Best Picture. Should you doubt me, here's are a couple of examples for you, from oscars.org: http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1312520455217
This one shows No Country for Old Men as winner of the Best Picture Oscar at the 2007 Oscars. You will, of course, note that No Country was released in 2007, and was awarded the Oscar in 2008.
Here's another, for The King's Speech (shown as winner of the 2010 Best Picture Oscar): http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1312520656986 |