Five sets of writers competed for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar on February 22, 2009 at the Academy Awards. Dustin Lance Black won for penning the Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. Courtney Hunt's Frozen River follows two women from dramatically different backgrounds as they smuggle people across the United States/Canada border. Martin McDonagh's In Bruges stars Colin Farrell who plays a small time con laying low in the European city. Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky follows an elementary teacher with an ordinary but an extraordinary view of the world. Dustin Lance Black's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, stars Sean Penn as the gay rights activist. The Pixar film, Wall-E by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter has virtually no dialogue for the first third of the film that follows the last robot on Earth.

• YouTube: Oscars: Dustin Lance Black Acceptance Speech