Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros. Entertainment, Fox Searchlight, The Weinstein Company

It all comes down to this for The Dark Knight, Milk, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire and all the other films labeled "Oscar hopeful" for whatever reason in 2008.

Ballots for the 81st Annual Academy Awards are due to be mailed Friday to the 5,810 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

So with holiday shopping (and returns) out of the way, it will be time to finally pencil in their choices for the top films, performances and technical work of 2008, be they Heath Ledger for his terrifying turn as the Joker, director Danny Boyle for Slumdog, Kate Winslet for The Reader (or Revolutionary Road) or WALL-E for either Best Animated Feature or Best Picture altogether.

Completed ballots must be back in the hands of the ballot counters and protectors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, by Jan 12.

Oscar nods will be announced in the wee hours of the morning Jan. 22, with the little gold men getting passed out Feb. 22 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.