While some may spend their pre-Oscar week organizing their office pools and planning a dorked-out Oscar-themed menu for Sunday night’s festivities (Slumdog Masala, Doubt-ful Daquiris, something gross involving Milk), fags like us go trolling the internet for the finest in shirtless evidence of the nominated actors’ long, hard and distinguished careers.

Without further ado, we bring you The Sword’s now annual gallery of all the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Nominees we see fit to feature shirtless.

(Scroll down for the results of our reader poll for who should win in the Actor category. Special thanks to Squarehippies.com for a few of the ‘caps.)

Sean Penn, Milk

Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor

Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon

Josh Brolin, Milk

Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Despite being deceased, he’s the odds-on favorite in this race. We’re not sure how we’d feel about that if we were, say Josh Brolin.  But we are not, and neither he nor James Franco will ever love us, so here’s a pic of Heath in his glory days.  And another one that made the rounds a couple years back — if you click the NSFW thumb below — of him naked in an outtake from the set of Brokeback Mountain.

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

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