Oscar invites Diablo Cody, Jet Li into ranks

updated 3:05 p.m. ET June 23, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Sacha Baron Cohen, Diablo Cody, Marion Cotillard, Ruby Dee and Jet Li have been invited to join Hollywood's most exclusive club — the group that hands out the Academy Awards.

They were among 105 actors, filmmakers, executives and others in the movie business who were asked to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Along with Cohen, Dee, Li and Cotillard, who won the best-actress Oscar in February for "La Vie En Rose," actors invited into the academy were Josh Brolin, Allison Janney and Ray Winstone.

Dee was a supporting-actress nominee for last year's "American Gangster," while Cohen had a screenplay nomination the previous year with "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Also on the list of invitees released Monday were Jason Reitman, a best-director nominee for last year's "Juno," and that film's writer, Cody, who won the original-screenplay Oscar.

Others include directors Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity"), Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") and Gore Verbinski ("The Pirates of the Caribbean" movies); writers Judd Apatow ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin"), Jeff Nathanson ("Catch Me If You Can") and Tamara Jenkins ("The Savages"); and animators Ash Brannon ("Surf's Up") and David Silverman ("The Simpsons Movie").

The academy has just under 6,000 voting members.

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