Best Picture: So Now We Have the Strongest Five, What Next?

The five strongest and most popular films heading into the race are:

Boyhood
The Imitation Game
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
American Sniper

I knew there would have be some machismo thrown in there to balance out the twee from Budapest, the sentimentality from The Imitation Game, the hero in decline in Birdman and the sweet but not masculine boy in Boyhood. We got that with American Sniper, the steak eaters have proclaimed it such, as Anne Thompson would say. That leaves us with only four slots left.

In some ways, you have to throw all of the charts out the window. Though many of the pundits have been saying no to Gone Girl, many of them have been wrong about what movies ARE popular with the industry. They didn’t have American Sniper on their list but they all had Unbroken on it, Interstellar and other films. They had their “no” but they weren’t right about their yes, with the exception of the top three on this list. It took them a while to come around to Budapest and Sniper is the only late entry.

I remember Kris Tapley at one point saying that Clint Eastwood is the only director who can really pull in an 11th hour surprise and it looks like he might be right. You will have to ask him if you think it will win.

If you add BAFTA’s contribution, which is The Theory of Everything, you have a pretty good bet that these will all get in:

Boyhood
The Imitation Game
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
American Sniper
Theory of Everything

That’s six out of a potential nine and it leaves us with three slots. I also did my directing charts before and those told me that it’s pretty rare to be nominated for Best Director for Globes and Critics Choice and not get in for Best Picture. The only two that aren’t here so far would be Selma and Gone Girl. But let’s hold off on those for a minute and look at what else we have to go on.

There is a good chance that the PGA’s list will have to lose two titles. But which two? You can pretty much wind your clock by this fact. PGA went for:

Birdman
The Imitation Game
Boyhood
Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler
American Sniper
Whiplash
Gone Girl
Foxcatcher
Theory of Everything

Two have to be dropped and it isn’t going to be our fixed titles so I’ve crossed them off now. And you have:

Birdman
The Imitation Game
Boyhood
Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler
American Sniper
Whiplash
Gone Girl
Foxcatcher
Theory of Everything

To further complicate things, in 2011, David Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo had all the requisite nominations but missed on a Best Picture. So keep that in mind as well.  So let’s look at what’s left:

Nightcrawler
Whiplash
Gone Girl
Foxcatcher

Of these, which has an Eddie? Three out of five. So I’m dumping Foxcatcher as one of the films that gets dropped.

That leaves three and one has to go:

Whiplash
Nightcrawler
Gone Girl

Conventional wisdom will tell you (re: what pundits are saying) that Gone Girl is dumped and you should go with that.  I’m actually going to dump Nightcrawler, though I loved it with a passion because on a preferential ballot I’m not sure it’s going to get enough number ones.  Foxcatcher, Gone Girl and Nightcrawler all have that thing about them that Inside Llewyn Davis had – that anti-hero non-feelgoody thing that makes people not want to root for the characters.  I think broad guild support will help Gone Girl get in and I think passion will work in Selma’s favor. Alas, I don’t think there will be enough preferential heat for Foxcatcher or Nightcrawler but I could be TOTALLY WRONG here.  Don’t you be like me. Let’s the Globes be a lesson in bad predicting.  That leaves my final predictions for Best Picture as follows:

Birdman
The Imitation Game
Boyhood
Grand Budapest Hotel
American Sniper
Whiplash
Gone Girl
Theory of Everything
Selma

I’m sticking to it. Worse case scenario, I get it wrong.

And here are the Gurus of Gold charts from Movie City News going back to 2011 – as you can see, we were pretty sure about ourselves except in 2011 because no one could have really seen Extremely Loud coming (although I think Scott Feinberg says he did). It does feel like a wacky year but I think I have to put my trust in the Gurus. But it’s close, my friends, it’s close.