Jake put together an impressive ticket, nailing 18 of the 24 categories, along with all of the majors. His misses were primarily in the single point categories, as he missed only one two point category and one three point category. Anne Bender also had a rather impressive showing, beating out two other perfect majors tickets to take second place, despite missing Best Picture. Like Jake, she also wiped out on the shorts, but of the two and three point categories, she only missed Best Song... and who didn't, really? Ann Frederick rounded out the top three, also capturing all six majors. We'd also like to send out a little honorable mention to Norm Finkel, who finished fourth by the narrowest of margins, matching Ann for overall score and number of categories, but losing out on the tiebreaker.

Speaking of the tiebreaker, we're convinced you're psychic. Given an infinite number of tiebreaker guesses, fully 20% of the entrants guessed three... which ended up being the final tiebreaker number. For those who are curious, the ads were a Pepsi ad that featured footage of Kirk Douglas (Best Actor nominations in 1950, 1953 and 1957), A U.S. Cellular ad that featured spokesperson Joan Cusack (Supporting Actress nominations in 1989 and 1998), and the somewhat shocking but generally appreciated move by Robert DeNiro (Best Actor nominations in 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1991 and 1992) to finally endorse something, that being American Express.

In general, what started out looking like an incredibly difficult year ended up being fairly average. Technically, the average score of 31 was actually our second-highest ever, though both 2000 and 2001 had an average score of 30, and 1999 had an average score of 29, so 2005 was right in line. Though there were very few categories that featured a heavy favorite, there also wasn't much in the way of big surprises, other than the shorts, which are traditionally a toss-up anyway. The biggest surprises in the majors were Million Dollar Baby for Best Picture and Clint Eastwood for Best Director, both of which were still chosen by 38% of the entrants. Other than the shorts, and one notable exception which we'll get to in a moment, none of the other winners were picked by less than 40% of the entrants. The notable exception was Best Song, where only two people, Laura Scudiere and Joe Marlovits, correctly guessed "Al Oltro Lado Del Rio". The biggest disappointment, by which we mean the losing nominee who received the most picks, was Martin Scorsese for Best Director, with 29 votes. Of course, this was also disappointing in a myriad of other ways, but we do our best to avoid bitter rants here at the Academy Awards Pool.

On a more positive note, we managed to collect a record number of entries for a third consecutive year, which we're rather happy about. It's always nice when a third place finish nets you more than the price of a cheeseburger :-)

So once again, thanks to everybody for participating, congratulations to the winners, and we hope to see you all again next year!

      - Dom & Amanda