And the Oscar might have gone to ...

In this image released by Fox Searchlight, Mickey Rourke is shown in a scene from, 'The Wrestler.'[Agencies]

LOS ANGELES – So the best-picture race will be twice as crowded at next year's Academy Awards, with the ceremony's organizers announcing Wednesday that they're expanding the field of nominees from five to 10.

It's a move they said was intended to give even more worthy films a shot at recognition, and hopefully to increase ratings in the process. But what if they had made this decision for this year's extravaganza of backslapping?

Here's a look at the movies from 2008 that should have been up for the top prize if the field had included 10 nominees:

• "The Dark Knight": The most obvious snub of all. A blockbuster that wowed critics and audiences alike to become the second-highest grossing film ever, behind "Titanic." It would have been very easy to imagine this ambitious Batman epic in the best-picture category alongside more traditional picks like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "The Reader."

• "The Wrestler": This stripped-down look at an athlete grasping at one last chance for glory made a lot of critics' top-10 lists. It earned Mickey Rourke a Golden Globe win for best actor in a drama and an Academy Award nomination, but "The Wrestler" is more than just a great performance.

• "WALL-E": Like "The Dark Knight," this beautiful, touching story about the last robot on Earth would have fit in nicely among the best-picture nominees. Probably the greatest film yet from the masters at Pixar, it won the Academy Award for best animated feature, but its themes, complexity and emotional impact transcend its aesthetic medium.

• "Happy-Go-Lucky": A small charmer with an irresistible performance from Sally Hawkins as a cheery British schoolteacher who never lets the absurdity of the world get her down. The Academy has acknowledged that it should be open to more comedies when handing out its top prizes, and films like this are a great place to start.

• "Frozen River": A small downer — but an indelible one — about two women desperate for money who smuggle immigrants across the border from Canada into the United States. Melissa Leo earned a Spirit Award, the Oscars of independent film, as well as an Academy Award nomination for her turn as a desperate single mom, but everything about writer-director Courtney Hunt's debut was powerful.