The Oscar Winners of 2009 Trivia Quiz

Answer: WALL-E

This touching and charming film was about a trash-collecting robot, with surprisingly human characteristics, who fell in love with a far more advanced probe robot named EVE. The movie also explored themes like environmentalism and mankind's over-reliance on technology.

"WALL-E" matched the record set by "Beauty and the Beast" for the most number of Oscar nominations for an animated feature - both films were nominated for six Academy Awards, although "Beauty and the Beast" had the distinction of scoring a nomination for Best Picture.

Answer: False

Although A.R. Rahman is the first Indian composer to win the Oscar for Best Original Score, he is not the first to be nominated in that category. Famed sitar player Ravi Shankar was previously nominated with George Fenton for scoring "Gandhi", although they lost out to John Williams for "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial".

The exuberant song "Jai Ho" was also not the first foreign-language song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. The first song to do that was "Never on Sunday" ("Ta Paidia toy Peiraia") from the 1960 Greek film of the same name. More recently, the Spanish-language song "Al Otro Lado del Río" from "The Motorcycle Diaries" also took home the Best Original Song Oscar.

Answer: Simon Beaufoy

Simon Beaufoy was the talented screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for "Slumdog Millionaire", which was adapted from the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup. Beaufoy identified with the themes of destiny and triumph over adversity that ran through the story. Said Beaufoy, "I've got this naive optimism that the underdog can prevail and overcome, and transposing that to somewhere as uncynical and romantic as India gave me a whole new lease on life." Beaufoy previously received an Oscar nomination for writing "The Full Monty".

Answer: Dustin Lance Black

Hollywood had been trying for more than 16 years to make a movie about Harvey Milk, the first prominent, openly gay, elected official in California. Projects based on the book "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" were in development over the years, with Oliver Stone, Bryan Singer and even Gus Van Sant attached to direct, but none of them got off the ground.

It turned out that what was needed was a fresh perspective on the material. Dustin Lance Black, who had long been inspired by Harvey Milk's story, took a stab at writing an original spec script that wasn't based on any biography of the man, relying instead on interviews with people who knew Harvey Milk. "I was tired of waiting for someone else to bring Harvey's story back to life," explained Black. "The studios wouldn't listen to me, so I set out to do it independently."

Answer: True

Penelope Cruz portrayed the passionate but volatile Maria Elena in the comedy "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", and became the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar. Her win also marked the fourth time that Woody Allen had directed an actress to a Best Supporting Actress win at the Oscars - Mira Sorvino had won in this category for "Mighty Aphrodite", and Dianne Wiest had won twice before for "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Bullets Over Broadway".

Curiously enough, Javier Bardem, Cruz's co-star in the film, became the first Spanish actor to win an Oscar the year before for his performance as Anton Chigurh, the relentless killer in "No Country For Old Men".

Answer: Heath Ledger for "The Dark Knight"

Heath Ledger scored an Oscar win for his chilling turn as The Joker in "The Dark Knight", a performance which Kevin Kline, one of the presenters of the award, described as "menacing, mercurial, droll, diabolical". This was only the second posthumous win by an actor in Oscar's 81-year history, the first being Peter Finch's turn as the unstable news anchor in "Network".

The nominations for the Academy Awards have traditionally been announced on a Tuesday morning, but the announcement in 2009 was delayed by two days so as not to clash with President Barack Obama's inauguration. Heath Ledger's Oscar nomination was therefore announced on January 22, 2009, the one-year anniversary of his death.

Answer: Kate Winslet for "The Reader"

At age 33, Kate Winslet became the youngest actress to receive six Oscar nominations for acting. She won her first Oscar on her sixth nomination for her portrayal of Hanna Schmitz, the German concentration camp guard who harbored a painful secret in "The Reader". Ironically, Kate Winslet had previously appeared as herself in the British comedy series "Extras", which depicted her acting in a movie about the Holocaust because it guaranteed her an Oscar win.

Although the studio campaigned for Winslet to be nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in "The Reader", Academy members saw fit to nominate her in the lead category, a phenomenon which occurred previously when Susan Sarandon ("Atlantic City") and Keisha Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") were both promoted for supporting Oscars, but received nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Answer: Sean Penn for "Milk"

Sean Penn has been nominated five times in this category, and had previously won for "Mystic River" (his first win). His sixth nomination and second win came for playing politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, which required him to alter his hairline and don contact lenses, a prosthetic nose and fake teeth in order to look more like the man.

Penn was the only American to win an acting award this year, which represented an improvement from the previous year when all four acting Oscars were awarded to non-Americans.

Answer: Danny Boyle

Incredibly, in 81 years of the Oscars, 2009 was only the fifth time that the five contenders for Best Director matched with the five contenders for Best Picture. The four previous occasions where the same thing happened were in 2006, 1982, 1965 and 1958 (references are to the years in which the Oscar ceremonies took place for movies which were released in the previous year).

In 2009, Danny Boyle scored his first Oscar nomination and win for Best Director for "Slumdog Millionaire". He had previously directed "Trainspotting", "The Beach" and "28 Days Later". Boyle was also set to direct a film based on the "Solomon Grundy" nursery rhyme about a baby who experienced his entire life over the course of six days, but he delayed the project because of its similarities to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Instead, he made "Slumdog", which went on to beat "Benjamin Button" in every category at the Oscars in which they were both nominated.

Answer: False

"Slumdog Millionaire" was the uplifting story about a young man who fought his way out of the slums of Mumbai and ended up competing in India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" in order to prove his love to a girl and fulfill his destiny.

It was the eleventh film in 81 years to win Best Picture without securing a single acting nomination. In the last 50 years, only four other films achieved this distinction: "Gigi", "The Last Emperor", "Braveheart" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King".