Inception

Oscar season’s finally over. The ballots are in. And the votes have been counted in Studio’s 2011 Oscar Survey.

We asked our readers to make their picks in each of the Academy’s categories, paying attention to the craftspeople and performers that they thought should win the awards, not necessarily the ones that they thought would win the award. As it turns out, our readers bucked the conventional wisdom.

The heavy favorite heading into the ceremony on Sunday is The King’s Speech, nominated in an even dozen categories. However, the StudioDaily readership only handed it a single award — Colin Firth got the nod for his lead performance. Instead, your picks were dominated by Christopher Nolan’s tricky tour de force Inception, which not only won our imaginary Best Picture award, but swept every single category in which it was nominated. If Christopher Nolan hadn’t been denied an Oscar nod this year, he would doubtless have won that prize, too.

We consider our readers part of a special crowd — exceptionally well-informed about all facets of the collaborative process that is filmmaking, but especially on the more technical side of the craft where Inception really excels — so these results don’t mean you should look for Inception to walk away with all the Oscar marbles on Sunday night. However, when we conducted our first online Oscar survey, way back in 2004, the first wave of results offered an early indicator of the kind of success The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was poised to enjoy on the big night. So you never know.

(For the record, there were only two other movies that received more than one “award” from our readership: The Social Network, which snagged directing and adapted-screenplay honors, and The Fighter, which was cited for performances by Christian Bale and Amy Adams. And, in a serious upset, How to Train Your Dragon came out on top of Toy Story 3 for animated film — a longshot scenario for Sunday night, but one that some pundits do consider a possibility.)

Best Picture: Inception
Runner-up: True Grit

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Runner-up: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Amy Adams, The Fighter
Runner-up: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Best Animated Feature Film: How to Train Your Dragon
Runner-up: Toy Story 3

Art Direction: Guy Hendrix, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat, Inception
Runner-up: Robert Stromberg and Karen O’Hara, Alice in Wonderland

Cinematography: Wally Pfister, Inception
Runner-up: Danny Cohen, The King’s Speech

Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, Alice in Wonderland
Runner-up: Jenny Beavan, The King’s Speech

Directing: David Fincher, The Social Network
Runner-up: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Documentary Feature: Inside Job (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
Runner-up: Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz)

Documentary Short: “Poster Girl” (Sara Nesson)
Runner-up: “The Warriors of Quigang” (Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon)

Film Editing: Jon Harris, 127 Hours
Runner-up: Tariq Anwar, The King’s Speech

Foreign-Language Film: Biutiful, Mexico
Runner-up: Incendies, Canada

Makeup: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, The Wolfman
Runner-up: Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng, The Way Back

Music (Original Score): Hans Zimmer, Inception
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat: The King’s Speech

Music (Original Song): “I See the Light” from Tangled, Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Glenn Slater
Runner-up: “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Short Film (Animated): “Day & Night,” Teddy Newton
“Madagascar, carnet de voyage” (Madagascar, a Journey Diary), Bastien Dubois

Short Film (Live Action)” “God of Love,” Luke Matheny
Runner-up: “The Crush,” Michael Creagh

Sound Editing: Richard King, Inception
Runner-up: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague, Tron: Legacy

Sound Mixing: Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick, Inception
Runner-up: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland, True Grit

Visual Effects: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb, Inception
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Runner-up: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Writing (Original Screenplay): Christopher Nolan, Inception
Runner-up: David Seidler, The King’s Speech