Meet This Year's Potential Best Picture Contenders
The decorations at your local mall may say "Christmas," but the movie release schedule suggests a different time of year: Awards Season. The next five weeks will introduce some heavy hitters—including new films from David O. Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, and Alejandro González Iñárritu—into what is already shaping up to be a crowded field of contenders. Actually, history suggests that the next best picture winner may already be playing in a theater near you. No December release has won the top Oscar in over a decade.
With that in mind, browse our quick guide to the 25 films that still appear to be in the running for best picture consideration, including titles released earlier this year as well as those arriving over the next month.
Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's English-language follow-up to The Great Beauty has been on Oscar experts' radar since its Cannes premiere in May, even if some critics there found the film less than the sum of its occasionally brilliant parts. A movie that centers on two aging men could connect with an Academy electorate whose average age was 63 last year—especially when those characters are played by Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel at the top of their game. And with only one other serious contender (Brooklyn) to promote, you can expect a strong awards push from distributor Fox Searchlight, which released last year's best picture winner, Birdman.
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