The Academy Awards are meant to celebrate the best achievements in film, but recently they seem to honor only those end-of-year prestige pictures that most mildly admire but no one really likes. Two of the best loved and most successful movies of the year, “Wall-E” and “The Dark Knight,” were shut out from the major categories but for a token nomination each: Best Orignial Screenplay for the robot and Best Supporting Actor for the Joker.

The Oscars have been fighting public indifference and flagging ratings in the past few years and another crop of nominations for movies most people haven’t seen won’t help anything. Politics aside, big awards used to go to movies that were well regarded and successful; with very few of those popping up these days, old uncle Oscar should be more willing to reward those movies that make people feel good about paying to see their product.

Certainly many of 2008’s best films are included in the list of nominees. “Slumdog Millionaire,” the story of a Mumbai-born underdog which is bit of a rags to riches tale itself (at one point it was to be doomed to be released directly to DVD) is getting rightly honored with 10 nominations including shots at Best Director and Best Picture.

Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins were treated to acting nominations for two underpublicized movies, “Frozen River” and “The Visitor,” respectively, that featured career-defining performances from these two veterans. But, it’s not the little-known movies that are killing the Oscars, it’s movies like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” that are causing all the problems. Everyone heard about it, but most people passed (for good reason—it was lightly charming and well-made but overlong and unmoving), and yet it still racked up the most nominations overall with 13.

Trying to find signs of life in the Academy Awards may just be like whipping that poor dead horse, but it’s still going to be more fun than “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

Best Motion Picture of the Year

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Ceán Chaffin, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall
Frost/Nixon: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Eric Fellner
Milk: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks
The Reader: Nominees to be determined
Slumdog Millionaire: Christian Colson

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor”
Frank Langella for “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn for “Milk”
Brad Pitt for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke for “The Wrestler”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Anne Hathaway for “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie for “Changeling”
Melissa Leo for “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep for “Doubt”
Kate Winslet for “The Reader”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams for “Doubt”
Penélope Cruz for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis for “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei for “The Wrestler”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Josh Brolin for “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr. for “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman for “Doubt”
Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon for “Revolutionary Road”

Best Achievement in Directing

Danny Boyle for “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry for “The Reader”
David Fincher for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard for “Frost/Nixon”
Gus Van Sant for “Milk”