[8][9] Other winners included The Bourne Ultimatum with three awards, La Vie en Rose and There Will Be Blood with two, and Atonement, The Counterfeiters, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Freeheld, The Golden Compass, Juno, Michael Clayton, Le Mozart des Pickpockets, Once, Peter & the Wolf, Ratatouille, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Taxi to the Dark Side with one.

The telecast garnered 31 million viewers, making it the least watched Oscar broadcast since 1974, when Nielsen began keeping records of viewership.

[10] The nominations were announced on January 22, 2008, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California by Sid Ganis, president of the Academy, and actress Kathy Bates.

[36][37] In anticipation that the strike would continue through Oscar night, AMPAS developed a Plan B show that would not have included actors accepting their awards.

[39] However, both the WGA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached an agreement effectively ending the strike on February 12, 2008, and the ceremony proceeded under its normal format.

When the nominations were announced on January 22, Juno was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $87.1 million in domestic box office receipts.

Only Ratatouille (9th), American Gangster (18th), Juno (31st), Charlie Wilson's War (39th), and Surf's Up (41st) received nominations for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, directing, acting, or screenwriting.

[45] The other top-50 box office hits that earned nominations were Transformers (3rd), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (4th), The Bourne Ultimatum (7th), Enchanted (20th), Norbit (29th), The Golden Compass (37th), and 3:10 to Yuma (45th).

The Washington Post television critic Tom Shales quipped that the ceremony was "Overstocked with clips from movies -- from this year's nominees and from Oscar winners going back to 1929 -- that it was like a TV show with the hiccups.

"[46] Columnist James Poniewozik of Time commented that Stewart was "an Oscar host–sometimes a funny one, but a pretty conventional one, whose routine was loaded up with kiss-up softballs about how hot Colin Farrell is, what range Cate Blanchett has and what a tomcat Jack Nicholson is."

If so, blame the writers' strike, which left the producers with only a few weeks to prepare for the ABC broadcast and persuaded them to lean less on the host and more on old clips."

"[49] Variety columnist Brian Lowry lauded Stewart's performance noting that he "earned his keep by maintaining a playful, irreverent tone throughout the night, whether it was jesting about Cate Blanchett's versatility or watching Lawrence of Arabia on an iPhone screen.

"[2] Frazier Moore from the Associated Press commended Stewart's improvement from his first hosting stint commenting, "He proved equal to the challenge posed by Oscarcast's quick turnaround.

[53] Many media outlets pointed out that the Writers Guild strike and the niche popularity amongst the field of major nominees contributed to the low ratings.

[57][58] The annual In Memoriam tribute, presented by actress Hilary Swank, honored the following people:[59] Paul Newman for "Fast Eddie" Felson in The Hustler and The Color of Money;Al Pacino for Michael Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II;Peter O'Toole for King Henry II in Becket and The Lion in Winter;Bing Crosby for Father O'Malley in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's;and later, Sylvester Stallone for Rocky and Creed