At the 81st Academy Awards on February 22, 2009, Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor for playing the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, more than a year after his death. His father, Kim Ledger, his mother, Sally Bell, and his older sister, Kate Ledger, accepted the award on stage. His father said the award would have validated Heath's quiet determination to be accepted by his peers in an industry he loved, his mother said the family was choosing to celebrate what he had achieved, and his sister accepted it on behalf of his daughter, Matilda.

Ledger became the second actor to win an Oscar after his death, following Peter Finch, who won Best Actor for Network. The performance also brought him a posthumous Golden Globe and more than 30 other posthumous awards.

Ledger died in his apartment in Manhattan on January 22, 2008, at 28. The medical examiner ruled the death an accident caused by acute intoxication…