2010 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture
The Films Most Likely to Be Nominated in January
Studios start promoting their 'Oscar Movies' as early as the summer blockbuster season, before ramping promotions up to fever pitch in December and early January, when Academy members cast their votes.
This year, ten films will be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, the first time that more than five films have competed in the top category since 1943, (Casablanca won that year). The increase in Best Picture nominations is the biggest upheaval at the Oscars in decades, but it still won't make picking the nominees and winners any easier.
From the buzz so far, though, it looks like most of the following films will appear on the Best Picture list in January.
The Lovely Bones
Directed by Peter Jackson, who won several Oscars for his The Lord of the Rings trilogy, this semi-fantasy thriller is adapted from a bestselling novel and stars Oscar winners Susan Sarandon and Rachel Weisz. After spending a couple of years in development and being passed over by several studios before being picked up by Jackson, this is easily one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year.
??The Hurt Locker
An intelligent film about the psychological games played out among soldiers in the Iraq war. The Academy Awards loves war-critical films, as evidenced by Best Picture winners such as The Deer Hunter and Platoon and Hollywood may confirm its opposition to the invasion of Iraq by honouring a film such as this.??
Invictus
This new drama about the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa has to start as a heavy Oscar favourite since its director is four-time Oscar winner Clint Eastwood. Three of Eastwood's previous films have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and two of them (Unforgiven, and Million Dollar Baby) have won. Both the latter starred Morgan Freeman who returns here in the prestige role of Nelson Mandela while another Oscar winner, Matt Damon, plays the captain of the South African rugby team.
Precious
This tiny film about poor black teenagers has already won glowing praise from Oprah Winfrey and may be this year's out-of-nowhere success story along the lines of Little Miss Sunshine.
Up In The Air
George Clooney stars as a corporate executioner who turns over a new leaf when he meets the woman of his dreams. The director, Jason Reitman, previously made Juno, the Oscar winning independent hit from 2007. Trivia clue: every second year, George Clooney stars in a film that is nominated for Best Picture, and his last, Michael Clayton, was in 2007. ??
Up
The hit film from animated studio Pixar. Many observers expected the studio's last film, Wall-E, to win a Best Picture nod, but it didn't and so this may be a make-up nomination.
An Education
A gentle British coming-of-age drama that is winning very positive reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nine
Lavish mega-musical starring Daniel Day Lewis, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman and others - look to see it feature heavily in January's nominations.??
Samson and Delilah
Agritty film about young Aboriginal Australians living in the centre of the Outback. Little seen but wildly praised, it may appear on the Oscar radar - seek it out.
Brothers
Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire star in this year's other War on Terror film, with Maguire playing a newly freed prisoner-of-war who returns from Afghanistan to find that his brother (Gyllenhaal) and his wife (Portman) have started up a new life in his absence.
Dark horse tip: Don't be surprised if box office and critical success Star Trek beams its way to a Best Picture nomination either.
Next: 2010 Best Actress Oscar Predictions
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