The Oscars are the highlight of the movie-making year, where everyone involved in the film industry sits in a big room, pretends to be interested in the Best Sound Editing Oscar and wonders if Eva Longoria's dress is supposed to look like that.

And now this year's Oscar nominations have been announced. Although there have been plenty of other awards handed out lately, the Oscar nominations announcement is traditionally the time when those in the movie business can check to see if their year was a huge triumph or a bitter, bleak, dismal disappointment of galactic proportions. But this year the makers of Dreamgirls must be a little bit confused about how they're supposed to react. According to the Oscar nominations, Dreamgirls is worthy of more Oscars than any other movie this year. Except the Oscar nominations also think that Dreamgirls is a bad film that's been terribly directed, too.

The Oscar nominations are a big deal, and your reaction to them depends on who you are. For instance, Sharon Stone must be feeling distraught that her recent Razzie Award embarrassment was followed so soon by an Oscar no-show in the Best Lopsided Breasts nomination category, while Brad Pitt's unsuccessful lobbying for the inclusion of a Best Sobbing Into A Phone While Looking Generally Unwashed category in the Oscars will only lead to more disappointment.

In reality, though, the Oscar nominations have thrown up no surprises whatsoever. Take the Best Picture nominations, for example. This year the Oscar will go to either Babel, which the Screen Actors Guild loved; The Departed, which the Directors Guild loved; Letters From Iwo Jima, which the National Board Of Review loved; Little Miss Sunshine, which the Producers Guild loved or The Queen, which the Venice Film Festival loved. So theoretically any of the Best Picture Oscar nominees could win. But – as the more observant of you will have guessed - Dreamgirls can't. Because Dreamgirls is nowhere.

For around six months, everyone's been babbling on about Dreamgirls being the Best Picture Oscar-winner in waiting even though hardly anyone had actually seen it – but not even the ear-shattering hype of the Dreamgirls Oscar buzz could get it a Best Picture or Best Director nomination. All isn't lost for Dreamgirls, though, as it picked up more Oscar nominations than any other film. Dreamgirls earnt Oscar nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Costume Design, three soundtrack nominations, Sound Mixing and Art Direction.

Here's the full list of this year's non-boring Oscar nominations – we're sure you'll be hearing more about them from us shortly…

BEST PICTURE

Babel

The Queen

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond

Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

Peter O’Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS

Penelope Cruz, Volver

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Adriana Barraza, Babel

Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Paul Greengrass, United 93

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Children of Men

William Monahan, The Departed

Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, Little Children

Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Guillermo Arriaga, Babel

Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Letters From Iwo Jima

Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine

Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth

Peter Morgan, The Queen

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Cars

Monster House

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Oscar has mixed feelings about Dreamgirls – CNN