THE EARLY RESULTS

THE votes haven’t been counted, the envelopes haven’t been opened and the speeches haven’t been given. But it’s far enough along in Oscar season to start thinking about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

It’s certainly been a great year for the newcomers. Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard earned their first lead actress nominations -- if Page wins, she will be the youngest lead actress in academy history at barely 21. The supporting actress category includes a host of first-time nominees, including one for “Atonement’s” 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan.

And the director category is loaded with Oscar nominee newcomers, including Tony Gilroy, who at 51 earned a director nomination in his first turn at bat for “Michael Clayton.”

Here’s a look at some other entries in our annual look at the winners and losers of the season.

WINNERS

“Juno’s” Diablo Cody: There have been loads of rookie screenwriters who landed an original screenplay nomination but it’s hard to remember the last time a writer seemed to revel more in the media hoopla. Cody seemed to be everywhere on the Oscar circuit, partying and giving outrageous interviews, often coming off like movieland’s better-behaved version of Amy Winehouse. The media loves a colorful back story -- if Cody got a residual every time she was described as a former stripper, she could retire happily already.

Scott Rudin: While nothing is guaranteed, it sure looks like the veteran producer is on the road to finally winning an Oscar, since he has the lead horse in the race, being the producer of favorite “No Country for Old Men.” (For added prestige, he’s also one of the executive producers of the nominated “There Will Be Blood.”) Victory would be sweet for the prickly impresario who’s never earned a statuette, despite having made more classy movies in the last dozen years than most studio chiefs make in a lifetime.

Julian Schnabel: If they gave Oscars for obnoxious behavior on the award circuit, this big kahuna of the art world would already have a trophy for his mantel. Still, for someone who counts filmmaking as a second career, it was quite a triumph to land a directing nomination -- and a raft of critical valentines -- for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” one of the year’s most stylish and dramatically challenging films.

Daniel Battsek: Harvey Weinstein must be eating his heart out. In his first two full years running Miramax, Battsek has landed consecutive best picture nominations, first for “The Queen,” now for “No Country for Old Men,” the prohibitive favorite for this year’s award. To add insult to injury, Miramax also has half of “There Will Be Blood,” made with Paramount Vantage.

LOSERS

DreamWorks: When it comes to making best picture-worthy musicals, the studio has gone down in flames two years in a row, first with “Dreamgirls,” now with “Sweeney Todd.” To make matters even worse, DreamWorks Animation’s “Bee Movie” got shut out in the animated feature category, despite much beating of the PR drums by producer-star Jerry Seinfeld.

The academy’s foreign-language film category: Radical changes need to be made if the academy hopes to regain any credibility with filmmakers after this year’s nominations debacle. The academy shunned two of the year’s best films, first by disqualifying Israel’s “The Band’s Visit” (saying the film had too much English) and then inexplicably snubbed Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” even though the mesmerizing drama won virtually every major critics award known to man.

Tim Burton: Has a better director ever been so roundly ignored by the academy? Now a bona fide old master, Burton has never even been nominated for any of his live-action films, despite having pulled out all the stops this time around with “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” a musical extravaganza that somehow left Oscar voters cold.

The Big Eight studios: Never has there been a greater gulf between the popcorn sensibility of the major studios and the quality consciousness of critics and academy members. With the exception of “Michael Clayton,” none of the best picture nominees was released by a major studio. The only studio that still consistently hits home runs with both critics and consumers is Pixar, which should get an Oscar for sustained excellence.

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The Big Picture runs in Calendar on Tuesday. E-mail your ideas or comments to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.