RasmussenReports.com, February 27th, 2007
The 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced last night, with The Departed bringing home the top prize for best picture of the year. The film was virtually tied with Little Miss Sunshine for the top pick among movie fans in a survey conducted last week. The Departed also earned Martin Scorsese his first Oscar for best director. Though Little Miss Sunshine didn’t win for best picture, Alan Arkin drove away with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and its writer received an award for best original screenplay.
Fan favorites didn’t fare as well in the lead actor category. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of movie fans wanted Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness) to win while 21% favored Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond) to bring home the Oscar. Their third choice, Forest Whitaker, however, ended up winning for his performance in The Last King of Scotland, the story of Idi Amin’s rise and fall from power in Uganda.
The Queen’s Helen Mirren won the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II during the week of Princess Diana’s death. Mirren was the fourth pick among movie fans, but three other nominees received virtually identical support. Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Penelope Cruz (Volver), Kate Winslet (Little Children) and Mirren were within three points of one another in our previous survey.
Another highlight was Former Vice President Al Gore winning an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for An Inconvenient Truth, a film about the impending danger of global warming in the world. Gore is viewed favorably among 50% of Likely Voters, but unfavorably by 47%.
First-time Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres won over the crowd with laughs and her laid-back demeanor. DeGeneres is viewed favorably among nearly half (49%) of adults. She’s viewed unfavorably by 37%.
This national telephone survey of 994 Movie Fans was conducted by Rasmussen Reports February 14-18, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.
Rasmussen Reports’ Election 2006 coverage has been praised for its accuracy and reliability. Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, mentions, “One clear lesson from the Republican victory of 2004 and the Democratic victory of 2006 is that the best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com." And University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato states, “In election campaigns, I’ve learned to look for the Rasmussen results. In my experience, they are right on the money. There is no question Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today.”
Rasmussen Reports was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.
During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, RasmussenReports.com was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
