The only upside to having five nominees for Best Picture that I can think of is that you have the chance for a potential surprise winner. A last minute surge, for instance, would be better illustrated with the plurality system of voting than the preferential. But here’s the thing. Both the DGA and the SAG use this method, as does the BAFTA. This past year with Birdman and Boyhood probably would have still resulted in Birdman winning since it won uniformly across the board.
You can usually measure a Best Picture contender by four key markers – Directing, Writing, Editing, Acting. You can get nominated without one of those but it’s rare. Thus, when you’re looking for your Best Picture contenders you’re looking for those key nods primarily but it doesn’t hurt to have a whole bunch of other ones too. And then in some instances it’s just a judgment call where it could have gone either way. The DGA is always a good primer for what would have been the Big Five, though again, not 100%.
But let’s see what the Best Picture slates would have looked like going backwards in time.
2009
The Hurt Locker (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Avatar (directing+editing)
Up in the Air (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Precious (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Inglorious Basterds (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Not nominated would have been:
District 9 (screenplay+editing)
An Education (directing+screenplay+acting)
Up (screenplay)
The Blind Side (acting)
A Serious Man (screenplay)
That matches the directing category, though, so it’s possible you might have seen some kind of shocker there but I feel strongly that those were the five.
2010
The King’s Speech (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
The Fighter (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
The Social Network (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Black Swan (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Inception (screenplay) or True Grit (directing+screenplay+acting)
I’ll bet that True Grit was left off of Best Picture even though the Coens were nominated for director. Not making it in for Best Picture would have been:
True Grit or Inception
The Kids are All Right* (Screenplay+acting)
Toy Story 3 (screenplay)
Winter’s Bone* (screenplay+acting)
127 Hours (screenplay+editing+acting)
2011
The Artist (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
The Descendants (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Hugo (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Midnight in Paris (directing+screenplay+acting)
Moneyball (screenplay+editing+acting)
Not getting in, I would guess, would be:
The Help (acting)
War Horse
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (acting)
The Tree of Life
2012
Argo (screenplay+editing+acting)
Lincoln (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Silver Linings Playbook (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Life of Pi (directing+screenplay+editing)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (directing+screenplay+acting) or Zero Dark Thirty (screenplay+editing+acting)
Not getting in, I would bet:
Les Miserables (acting)
Django Unchained (screenplay+acting)
Zero Dark Thirty (screenplay+editing+acting) or Beasts
Amour (screenplay+acting)
2013
12 Years a Slave (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Gravity (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
American Hustle (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
Captain Phillips (screenplay+editing+acting)
The Wolf of Wall Street (directing+screenplay+acting) or Nebraska (directing+screenplay+acting)
Not making it, I would bet, though it’s really hard to tell:
Nebraska (directing+screenplay+acting) or Wolf of Wall Street (directing+screenplay+acting)
Dallas Buyers Club (screenplay+editing+acting)
Philomena (screenplay+acting)
Her (screenplay)
2014
Birdman (directing+screenplay+acting)
Boyhood (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
The Imitation Game (directing+screenplay+editing+acting)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (directing+screenplay+editing)
American Sniper (screenplay+editing+acting) or Whiplash (screenplay+editing+acting)
Not making it in:
Selma
The Theory of Everything (screenplay+acting)
Whiplash (screenplay+editing+acting) or Sniper
That is basically how I see it. As far as winners go, I do not know but in conversations with people over the years, like Kris Tapley and David Poland they seem to think that Avatar would have won with a majority vote ballot rather than a preferential. You might even say, then, that Gravity would have also. But I’m not so sure in these cases. I can only go by what I see happening now which is uniformity, for the most part, across the PGA and DGA wins since 2009 with scant exceptions here or there, like 2013’s PGA tie.
Clearly women would get the shaft with 5 – it is a miracle that they had ten in 2009 and 2010 because it was their best two years for women on record. No animated film would have gotten in and certainly no District 9. So how about you? Do you agree with the choices I have for five?