American movie fans don’t have a clear favorite as to which film should win the Oscar award for Best Picture. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 994 movie fans found that 15% want Little Miss Sunshine to snag the Oscar for best picture. The Departed is essentially even with 14% thinking it deserves the honor. Clint Eastwood’s war epic, Letters from Iwo Jima, is the third choice at 11% followed by The Queen at 10% and Babel at 5%.

In the best actor category, 28% of movie buffs want to see Will Smith take home the Oscar. Smith played Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness. Twenty-one percent (21%) believe Leonardo DiCaprio should win for his performance in Blood Diamond.

Meanwhile, fifteen percent (15%) of adults would like first time nominee Forest Whitaker to bring home Oscar. Whitaker has already earned a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actor’s Guild Award for his portrayal as Dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Peter O’Toole (Venus), who has been nominated eight times but never won, is the top choice for 8% in our survey. Only 4% want Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson), who also received his first nomination, to win.

The best actress category is much more competitive. Four of the five actresses nominated are the choice for between 14% and 17% of movie fans. Seventeen percent (17%) want Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada) to pick up an Oscar for her devilish performance. Streep has been nominated fourteen times, but has only won twice. Penelope Cruz has nearly as much support, 16%, for her performance in Volver. Kate Winslet (Little Children) is the top choice for 15% while Helen Mirren (The Queen) is favored by 14%. Only Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal) is out of the running among the fans. Just 7% believe she deserves the award.

For this survey, movie fans are defined as those who plan to watch at least some of the Academy Awards show this Sunday, February 25 on ABC. The margin of sampling error for the poll is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

This year’s Oscars will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and hosted by daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Among all American adults, DeGeneres is viewed favorably by 49% and unfavorably by 37%. That compares favorably to most other celebrities we’ve asked about including Mel Gibson, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Courtney Love, Nicole Richie, Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Vince Vaughn and Michael Richards.

DeGeneres also polls better than CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric.

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