Bringing Oscar Home

Ray

Nominations Best Picture, Actor, Director, Costumes, Sound, Editing

DVD highlights The only Best Picture nominee to be found (legally) in stores, this excellent biopic of genius-wailer Ray Charles boasts the usual vignettes of actors discussing their devotion to their craft. But the limited-edition disc has longer versions of the film's musical numbers, behind-the-screen clips of Charles providing new versions of old songs and a mini-doc of the film's 15-year road to completion--all hosted by Ray's charismatic star, Jamie Foxx.

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

Nominations Best Actress, Original Screenplay

DVD highlights The two-disc collector's edition of this tense, loopy love story would be worth the extra few bucks just for the running commentary by elusive Charlie Kaufman, the Salinger of screenwriters. And by the way, who does Jim Carrey have to, you know, make love to to get an Oscar nomination?

The Story of the Weeping Camel

Nomination Best Documentary

DVD highlights A clan of Mongolian nomads uses a musical ritual to get a mother camel to nurse the newborn she had previously rejected, a rare white calf. The DVD extras are skimpy, but you'll learn lots about the life nomadic.

Before Sunset

Nomination Best Adapted Screenplay

DVD highlights This nine-years-later sequel, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, to the Euro-romance Before Sunrise is one of those love-it-or-hate-it movies. You'd better love it if you're getting the DVD, since the only extra is a 10-min. making-of filmette

Maria Full of Grace

Nomination Best Actress

DVD highlights Catalina Sandino Moreno--in her first professional role--stars as the willful Maria, a young Colombian who, faced with few options in life, decides to become a drug mule. Director Joshua Marston's commentary on the DVD provides a historical backdrop, talking extensively about the drug trade in the U.S. and Colombia.