Could Heath Ledger win an Oscar for his role as the Joker in new Batman movie?

It's a question lighting up the blogosphere these days: Will Heath Ledger be nominated for — and win — a posthumous Oscar for his performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight"? Of course, any discussion of the Academy Awards in midsummer is wildly premature, as is discussion of a performance that hardly anyone has seen. But could it happen?

Posthumous acting nominations are rare but not unheard of. Six performers have been nominated for an Academy Award after their deaths: Jeanne Engels for "The Letter" (1928/29), James Dean for "East of Eden" (1955) and "Giant" (1956), Spencer Tracy for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), Peter Finch for "Network" (1976), Ralph Richardson for "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" (1984) and Massimo Troisi for "The Postman" (1995). Of these, only Finch won the Oscar.

More problematic is the nature of the movie itself: Oscar tends to be a bit snobbish about superhero movies. No actor has ever been nominated for a Batman movie; or, for that matter, a Spider-Man, Superman or X-Men movie, well-acted as they are. And though Robert Downey Jr. is terrific as "Iron Man," nobody's talking Oscar about him.

But Ledger is a previous nominee (for "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005), and academy members may well feel a wave of sentiment for a talented actor too soon gone. Will "The Dark Knight" and Ledger's performance be forgotten by early 2009, or will the Oscar voters find a way of remembering? Time will tell; stay tuned.

Moira Macdonald