2011 Best Picture Oscar

The King's Speech is suitably British and I think that might work in its favour (or favor if you're American lol).

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what would it mean if Toy Story won? would it be a slap in the face to the rest of the nominations? I mean I know it won't win Best Picture but it will more than likely win Best Animated Feature so why even nominate it? just to honor it? isn't it already an honor to win/be nominated for one? why not give that slot to some other film?

will an animated feature ever win Best Picture?

People would be stunned. Some would be gratified. Same as any huge upset, really.

Long-term, I guess it could signal that the Oscars won't necessarily need to go to somber dramas and the like, but are open to rewarding excellence in other types of films.

Obviously, this depends on whether or not you think it's even remotely deserving. Any upset could be seen as a "slap in the face" to any film an individual finds more deserving.

I don't understand these questions. Yes, to honor it. That's why every nominated film is nominated. You can always single out a few choices that have very little chance of winning that could be replaced by another, but by definition that replacement would have even less chance of winning, since it must have had less support to miss the cut to begin with.

Definitely. Ever is a long time.

Toy Story 3 was the best film I've seen this year. I think it's a safe bet for Best Animated Picture if they nominated it for Best Picture (see Up). Most of the best movies I've seen in the last few years have been animated. I hope to see an animated film win Best Picture sometime before I die. Do I think I ever will? Not really.

Why are there only three Best Animated Picture nominees? With all of the praise piled on animated films this year (Toy Story 3, Shrek Forever After, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Megamind) they certainly have more than three deserving of nomination.

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I was asking why double honor it? why not spread the love and save that slot/honor (since it's going to win best animated feature) to idk.. off the top of my head Rabbit Hole or Shutter Island? I don't think those films would have less chance of winning best pic than Toy Story 3. I guess i'm just mad that everybody (including myself) dismisses the animated best picture nod right away as a potential winner so it feels like a wasted nod to me but Pixar probably digs it so i guess i can be happy its nominated...

only during an actor's strike will an animated feature win best picture...

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The only way to avoid the "double honor" thing is not to have a category like Best Animated Feature at all. So either they forego the chance to honor animated films altogether in most years, or else they put up with the fact that sometimes that category is going to be preordained. But the first priority should be picking the most deserving films, even if that removes the tension from this one category.

And while it may seem like Shutter Island or Rabbit Hole has a better chance, if it actually did, it would've gotten more votes for nomination to begin with.

Perhaps if animated films are routinely nominated for Best Picture a few decades from now, they might consider removing the category, though in years when this doesn't happen it's still nice to recognize them.

It might be a little while, but I think we'll see it happen in the next 10-15 years. I wouldn't have put up a fuss if Up had won.

Remember that the actor's branch is, by far, the biggest voting block in the Academy pool. So you're going to have to wait for the day when the actors all decide, yeah, a bunch of animated performances are equal to what I do (not to mention the set designers, costume designers, and other voters whose craft is not used at all in animation). That's why you'll probably never ever see an animated vocal performance, or one that is complex motion control like Avatar, get even a nomination in the acting categories, much less a win. Robin Williams' work on Aladdin was the first time it was really seriously floated around the industry, and as I recall Disney even took out trade ads to suggest it as a possibility. Didn't happen, obviously. There was a bit of buzz around Andy Serkis for Lord of the Rings, too, but you see how far that got him come Oscar time.



As for whether an animated film should take up one of the ten spots when it has no chance of winning, instead sacrifice it to something else that has no chance of winning, well, it only shows how ridiculous it is to expanded to ten in the first place. It's always going to come down to one or two serious contenders and a dark horse that'll win once every thirty years or so. Doesn't matter if there are five on the ballot, ten or twenty-five.

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There you go, but does a strike keep people from voting? Perhaps...

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No, it doesn't.

A few years back for the WGA Strike (2007-2008), they were actually on strike and negotiating from the nominating ballots all the way through, and the agreement wasn't ratified until after the Oscar ceremony. Academy guidelines have no clauses about guilds or members on strike being ineligible to nominate or vote. Being on strike doesn't somehow suspend your Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences privileges.

I think it will go to A Winter's Bone. A decent film, but it wasn't great in my book, but of the other one's I've seen; True Grit, Social Network, 127 Hours, and Inception it was the best.

I don't think I've seen a movie from this year that'd I'd give an "A" rating to, but I haven't seen a ton of stuff. Inception annoyed me to no end with the constant camera movement and lack of non-plotting forwarding dialogue. True Grit was good and enjoyable - better than the original, but nothing standout.

The Social Network despite the Trent Reznor music and very similar Fight Club style and photography from David Fincher, just did not interest me at all.

I still need to see The King's Speech and Black Swan.

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Oh and based on everything I've read, I'm surprised The American didn't get nominated. I haven't seen it, but I need to. I was going to earlier this year, but didn't. To me it seems like it'd be the movie I'd like the most from this year, at least on paper.

Mark my words: Black Swan will win this.

OK, so trying to handicap this thing.

There are two clear favorites, could go either way, really...and eight other films just taking up space.

Winter's Bone has about as much realistic chance of winning as the other four hundred or so films that weren't nominated this year. The screenwriting and two acting noms plus this essentially honorary title of Best Picture nominee are well earned and should have it Netflixed all over, getting a whole new swath of people to discover this dark, gritty little flick. Good on them, even with no shot at Picture.


The Best Picture nomination has done for 127 Hours exactly what every producer and studio hopes for. The movie was well reviewed but underseen, stalling at about $11-million after over two months of limited release, maxing out at eighty some screens, it was just about to completely disappear from first run theaters when, *BAM*, Oscar noms! The theater count is swelling dramatically this weekend, and it may come close to matching its two month total in a single weekend. That is the business perk of an Oscar nomination, and don't kid yourself: this is the main, if not only, reason for the industry expanding the list from five to ten. With only five spots this year, 127 Hours likely doesn't get the Best Picture nom (though it probably would have still gotten the Actor and Screenplay nods), and the re-roll out into quick cash-making release would have been much less impactful. So this movie doesn't "need" to win, it has already gained its reward, being more money at the boxoffice. As a bonus, 127 Hours also happens to be a good movie, so it's a win-win.

Inception has already made a zillion bucks and been released on DVD and BluRay for over a month, so the financial reward for this Best Picture nomination is negligible, if anything. Can't believe there is anybody even slightly interested in seeing it who hasn't yet done so. However many people will be at their local video store this weekend (if they even still have one) or filling their Netflix que will say, 'Oh, yeah, that didn't look like my thing...but it was nominated for Best Picture' and give it a look, the Studio made exponentially more at the first Sunday matinee on its second month of release. So this is the other "benefit" of the expansion to ten: throwing the genre blockbuster they would never dream of naming Best Picture a prestigious bone. And yes, that "dream of" there was intentional.


We've already gone over Toy Story 3 and why it has zero chance of winning in what may come to be the obligatory honorary spot for the obvious Best Animated Feature winner. It was Up last year, Toy Story 3 this year, it'll probably turn out to be whatever Disney or PIXAR has on slate for this summer in 2012 and on and on and on. Oh, well. I guess the poor PIXAR team will have to console themselves with the other sure Oscar they're going to win and the literally one-BILLION dollar worldwide box office take (plus whatever mint they've already made on BluRay and DVD sales). I sincerely hope they can recover.

The Kids Are All Right isn't going to win either. Not for any political reasons, but because of things like the fact that the director, Lisa Cholodenko, isn't nominated. The last time a movie was named Best Picture without its captain even getting a Best Director nomination? The was Driving Miss Daisy, twenty-one years ago. Before that? 1932, at the fifth Oscar ceremony (Grand Hotel was Best Picture, but Edmund Goulding wasn't nominated). Of course that was largely because there were only three Best Director nominees at the time. So in the modern era of the Academy Awards there has been exactly one time when the Picture didn't have its director nominated. It could happen again. Chances that it's going to be The Kids Are All Right in 2011? Teeny-weeny.


The remaining Picture nominees match up with the Director nominees, so that historical caveat is eliminated. But three of them won't come close to making it for other reasons. The Academy sure does like boxing movies. Lots of nominations have come from narratives focused on the sweet science, most obviously Best Picture winners Rocky and Million Dollar Baby, but also Raging Bull, Ali, Body and Soul, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Champ, The Great White Hope, Cinderella Man, The Hurricaine, Fat City and probably something else I'm forgetting. The Fighter joins that list with seven nominations, and while Melissa Leo is a minor favorite for Supporting Actress and Christian Bale an overwhelming favorite for Supporting Actor, the Best Picture nomination is the equivalent of a contender's stepping stone against a fighter that has a twenty pound and seven-inch-reach advantage. It's a TKO before the first bell even rings.


This is the fourth Coen Brothers movie to be nominated for Best Picture, having won a few years ago for No Country for Old Men. I love that the unlikely re-make of True Grit has gotten so many nominations, including Best Picture, but it will not be joining Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves and 1931's Cimarron as the only Westerns to win Best Picture. It does join a list of only eight others even nominated for Picture: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, How the West Was Won, Shane, Giant, High Noon, The Ox-Bow Incident, Stagecoach and In Old Arizona. I love Westerns, so I'm glad to see another from the genre make the cut. And from Joel and Ethan Coen, of all people!

Black Swan is a stylized cinematic ride that audiences either go with or don't. Those who do already consider it some sort of masterpiece, and even its detractors can agree Natalie Portman is pretty amazing. The buzz about the movie, pre-awards, was enough to fuel it to a very impressive $85-million domestic take so far, so it is already more financially successful than anyone involved in making it could have realistically hoped. Portman will win her Oscar, but winning Best Picture simply isn't on the program.

And that leaves the two legitimate odds-on contenders: The King's Speech and The Social Network.


The King's Speech has similarities to past winner Shakespeare in Love and nominee The Queen in that it is an easy to digest British import with seriocomic tones and glimpses of Royalty. The trailers would have you believe it is a light comedy about an eccentric speech therapist and a stammering King, and while that is the centerpiece and supplies most of the film's laughs it does also look at the death of a monarch, the scandalous renunciation of the throne over an infamous affair, and the beginnings of World War II. That it really mattered in the course of history whether or not the King's radio addresses were inspiring or not is a question even the film cannot answer confidently, but it is an enjoyable trifle. It is not especially deep and doesn't seem overly relevant or timeless, but it is well made and easy to like, for what it is. Whether that kind of breezy good feeling that doesn't challenge a viewer translates into lots of votes for Best Picture, we'll know in a month. It's not any lighter than Shakespeare in Love, probably deals with big issues with no less depth than Driving Miss Daisy, but surely isn't nearly as toe-tapping as My Fair Lady. That those Best Pictures are among what could objectively be called the shallower end of the Oscar pool certainly doesn't mean that The King's Speech might not join them up to its metaphorical shins anyway.

The Social Network is very well made, and in spite of David Fincher's slick style (muted, but still slick) it is very much an old fashioned movie. Old fashioned in the sense that there really isn't any gimmicky high concept (as with his previous nominated film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), just friendship, creation, betrayal, envy, success, the corrupting influence of fame and money, regret and lawsuits. In this very specific tale of the creation of Facebook, ultimately the details hardly matter. What is interesting are not the roots of a pop culture phenomenon but watching these personalities clash and the age old tale of money not buying happiness, which makes the 21st century no different from the previous thirty. There are no car chases, no guns, no fatal diseases landing beloved characters in the hospital, no sweeping romantic love story, no chapter of a history textbook brought to life. But The Social Network seems to be the right movie at the right time, at least for Oscar.

It COULD be The King's Speech, or Black Swan could have one more surprising magnificent performance or the overlooked underdog of The Fighter could throw a devastating body blow in the final round. But it's probably going to be the Facebook movie. Get used to it.

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Excellent argument, Holden, and I can't say I disagree with anything you said. I especially loved the paragraph on Toy Story 3.

What strikes me this year is the lack of an epic film or a larger than life film that dominates the field; The Social Network has all those awards and is leading the pack, but it strikes me as one of those films in another year that is just happy to be nominated. The King's Speech reminds me of that as well. Yet, they are the favorites this year. I do think both are excellently made films. Of the two, The King's Speech has the feel-good aspect; The Social Network doesn't have that, but it may be perceived as "hip" -- even if I agree with Holden's assertion that it is really an rather old-fashioned film. I sense it has the younger vote while The King's Speech takes the older vote. (I still can't get over how many old people were at the showing I went to.)

I'm still reeling from Crash's win over Brokeback Mountain and I don't know if I'm reading it right, but that seemed a win for the older voters. At the same time, Crash did an over-the-top marketing campaign. Not sure what made it win. It seems to me, though, that emotion surely played a role there but that kind of emotion and difference in films doesn't exist here. Neither of these films is making any kind of "statement." Seems to me that doesn't exist in this field at all this year. There is no veteran to cheer for; there is no clear cut amazing film directed by a woman to cheer for; there is no huge political statement to cheer for; there is no clear film that screams, "Best Picture" winner.

For the most part, whatever film I love that year tends to win. I guess my taste and the Academy's is often in sync (not the year of Crash needless to say). With that mind, there is something so incredibly sweet about The King's Speech that makes me love it; it is the sentimental vote. The Social Network seems weightier even if I don't think the film really is. The Academy loves to think they are so self-important, but really, did either of these films say all that much?

Both of these films strike me as the same thing: a character study. And if the Academy voter needs a distinction between these two characters, they will obviously see it is a character of the past versus a character of the present and that present character is still with us. His story isn't even over. So what makes them finally choose between the two films?

Even though, like I said, they usually go with the film I love, I think they will go with the present and give it to The Social Network. But then again... ahhhh.....

I'm rambling and thinking out loud, obviously!

Can't really argue with that. Social Network it is. And yet again that just reaffirms to me just how mediocre most of the flicks that came out last year were, oh well. I bet we're in for some greats this year.

I do think however that if we're going to continue to be subjected to this ten picture nom thing that it would be nice to see one more regular feature in there. I know many have already expressed how wonderful and "all that" that Toy Story 3 was, but its nomination is a complete waste of time and I seriously doubt it will really net it a great deal more money because of it. Besides it really isn't even in the top two best animated feature last year. Seriously. Oh, and by the way. Has anyone heard of or seen The Illusionist? It didn't play at your PFF last year did Holds? I don't recall you writing about it, but I could have easily forgotten too. It looks good, but what a completely random, out of leftfield choice for Best Animated feature. If the Academy wants people to notice more films like that then why don't they have at least 2 more features in the category? I would seek them out and watch them and I know others do as well. It just seems like a very small gesture, when it could be a grand one.

Anyway... I'm not going to bother voting with my heart this year. Most of the favorites will win (if not all of them). But I will be rooting hard for Winter's Bone, because that actually was a terrific film and maybe last years best. Even though it has no shot.

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The other thing tipping the scale in favor of The Social Network over The King's Speech (and everything else) that I didn't mention above is Best Director. Fincher is the heavy favorite in that category, and while there was an extended period there of splitting the Picture and Director awards, that trend seems to be over. From 1969 to 1998 there were only three instances where the two awards differed: the 1973 ceremony with Godfather/Bob Fosse (Cabaret), 1982's Chariots of Fire/Warren Beatty (Reds), and 1990's Driving Miss Daisy/Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July). Three splits in twenty-nine years. But from 1999 to 2006 there were four such splits: 1999 ceremony Shakespeare in Love/Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan), 2001 Gladiator/Steven Soderbergh (Traffic), 2003 Chicago/Roman Polanski (The Pianist), and in 2006 Crash/Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain). Four in eight years after three in twenty-nine was odd. But in the four Oscars since then, it has gone back to the Best Director coming from the Best Picture.

So while there could be a King's Speech win here even with Fincher taking home the Directing statue, crunching the overall historic Oscar numbers doesn't favor it going that way. I may very well happen, it is not at all without precedent, but the safer bet is not to pick a split.

It'd still be cool to see Winter's Bone get it. I understand why it won't though and after all you've written I have to agree with you on The Social Network. I didn't dislike it, I just wasn't interested in the material and I couldn't much make any connection to Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg. He was cold and I was impartial... I get that him being not the most liked of people was the point, but unlike other villains or ambiguous characters, I didn't enjoy dislking him.

And something about Eisenberg leaves me cold in a way that the Juno girl does. I loved him in Squid and the Whale and had a lot of fun hatting his pretencious sniveling there, but he didn't carry the film. He was tolerable in Zombieland, but was a cliche' in that movie of the film's collective audience.

I'm probably bias against Social Network for personal reasons... I hate networking and being social... but I boy-o do I love the Reznor soundtrack and the photography in the movie. Winter's Bone is the better movie in my mind.

Well, The Social Network IS a social satire. Maybe saying "The Facebook" doesn't have the same effect as saying "plastics" did in 1967's The Graduate, but what happens to the characters and their lifestyles were skewered pretty well in both films. Then again, the rich elitists in The Social Network could almost be seen as the offspring of the Robinsons and the Braddocks from the earlier film. The thing about The Social Network is that even if you don't like or don't root for Zuckerberg, he and Eduardo are from the "wrong side of the tracks" and deserve some empathy from the audience. Most people will certainly feel more for Eduardo, but I believe that's the point.

I realize that The Graduate did not win Best Picture at the Oscars, but at least it's considered a bona fide classic and a solid reflection of its time. I'm quite convinced that The Social Network will be seen as an equally-significant snapshot of its time and therefore be more important (and prescient) in the years to come than some people apparently feel it is just now. It has been quite some time since I watched a film which totally enveloped me in as many cinematic ways as The Social Network did, and on top of that, I was laughing out loud a lot, only to feel some kind of deep sadness, perhaps for my daughter's generation, when the film ended.

I have to say that I want to watch The King's Speech, but my health hasn't quite allowed me to make any trips to the movies lately. I mean to say that I'm not ignoring it because I cannot honestly say how I'll feel about it until I see it. Call me weird, but that's how I roll.

Well, the DGA Award last night makes the Social Network vs. King's Speech Best Picture race more exciting. Tom Hooper, and not David Fincher, won the DGA Award. That award has been one of the most reliable Oscar predictors over the decades. So if Hooper does win the Oscar and isn't one of the four differences between DGA and Oscar since 1985, then it goes back to the numbers I quoted a above, with just four Picture/Director splits in the past eleven years and none in the past four.

It's still a two horse race, but The King's Speech may have taken a slight lead coming around the last turn.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards just ended, with The King's Speech winning the Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture award. They've only been giving this award since 1996, and it hasn't been an especially good predictor of the Academy's Best Picture. In those fifteen years the SAG winner has been the same as the Oscar winner only seven times. We'll see if The King's Speech evens it up this year to make it a not terribly impressive 50%. Inglourious Basterds won last year, and casts such as Sideways, Gosford Park and The Birdcage have won in the past.