Peter Travers has posted his Top Ten list, which often eerily mirrors Oscar best picture, as we in this game know. Best Picture is probably going to look like this, give or take a Tangerine. The Best Picture winner has been on Travers’ list since I started back in 1999.
1. Spotlight
PETER TRAVERS
01. Boyhood
02. Birdman
03. Foxcatcher
04. Selma
05. Gone Girl
06. Whiplash
07. Grand Budapest Hotel
08. Unbroken
09. Under the Skin
10.Interstellar
Travers Top Ten in the past few years:
2013:
1. 12 Years A Slave
2. Gravity
3. The Wolf of Wall Street
4. Before Midnight
5. Her
6. American Hustle
7. Captain Phillips
8. Nebraska
9. Blue Jasmine
10. Inside Llewyn Davis
2012
10. The Dark Knight Rises
9. Moonrise Kingdom
8. Life of Pi
7. Les Miserables
6. Silver Linings Playbook
5. Argo
4. Lincoln
3. Beasts of the Southern Wild
2. Zero Dark Thirty
1. The Master
2011
1. Drive (“too bloody, too creative, too ambitious and too polarizing to comfort audiences”)
2. The Artist (“style to burn and unexpected soul”)
3. The Descendants (“orchestrated without a false note”)
4. Moneyball (show us “how to find value in what others miss.”
5. Midnight in Paris (“Woody’s love letter to the City of Light”)
6. Hugo (“An irresistible bedtime story for movie lovers”)
7. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (“the acting artistry of Gary Oldman”)
8. Margin Call (“blue-chip acting as Wall Street gets it in the teeth”)
9. The Tree of Life (Malick’s “one-of-a-kind film strives even when it falls short”)
10. War Horse, The Help, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
2010:
- The Social Network
- Inception
- The King’s Speech
- True Grit
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours
- Black Swan
- The Fighter
- Winter’s Bone
- Toy Story 3
(thanks vcb, & wb!)
To check Traver’s track record in matching up with the Oscars, take a look at his past Top 10 Lists going back more than a decade, after the cut.
**Best Picture winner, bold means nominated:
2009:
- Precious
- Up in the Air
- The Hurt Locker**
- An Education
- Up
- Where the Wild Things Are
- A Serious Man
- District 9
- (500) Days of Summer
- The Messenger
2008:
1. Milk
2. Slumdog Millionaire**
3. The Dark Knight
4. Frost/Nixon
5. WALL-E (won animated)
6. Revolutionary Road
7. The Visitor
8. Doubt
9. Rachel Getting Married
10. Man on Wire (won Doc)
2007:
1 No Country for Old Men**
2 Atonement
3 Into the Wild
4 Eastern Promises
5 Sweeney Todd
6 American Gangster
7 There Will Be Blood
8 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9 I’m Not There
10 Knocked Up
(tie) Juno
2006:
1 The Departed**
2 Dreamgirls
3 (tie) Letters from Iwo Jima
(tie) Flags of our Fathers
4 Volver
5 Babel
6 United 93
7 The Queen
8 Borat
9 Little Miss Sunshine
10 A Prairie Home Companion
2005:
1 A History of Violence
2 Brokeback Mountain
3 Syriana
4 Good Night, and Good Luck.
5 Munich
6 Capote
7 The Squid and the Whale
8 The Constant Gardener
9 Crash**
10 (tie) King Kong
(tie) Wedding
2004
1 Sideways
2 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
3 Milliion Dollar Baby**
4 The Aviator
5 The Incredibles
6 Kinsey
7 Closer
8 Finding Neverland
9 Kill Bill: Volume 2
10 Fahrenheit 9/11
2003
1. Mystic River
2. Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King**
3. Lost In Translation
4. Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World
5. Cold Mountain
6. American Splendor
7. Big Fish
8. A Mighty Wind
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
10. Angels In America [HBO]
2002
1. Gangs of New York
2. Far From Heaven
3. Adaptation
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. Y Tu Mama Tambien
6. Chicago**
7. Talk To Her
8. Road To Perdition
9. About Schmidt
10. 8 Mile
2001 (two lists)
01. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (Peter Jackson)
02. Ali (Michael Mann)
03. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
04. Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson)
05. Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe)
06. Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann)
07. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)
08. A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard)**
09. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
10. Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh)
List 2
01. Memento (Christopher Nolan)
02. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
03. Waking Life (Richard Linklater)
04. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
05. Hedwig And The Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell)
06. Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer)
07. In The Bedroom (Todd Field)
08. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen)
09. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
10. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
2000
01a. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
01b. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe)
02. Gladiator (Ridley Scott)
03. Traffic (Steven Soderbergh)
04. Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry)
05. Croupier (Mike Hodges)
06. You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonegran)
07. The House of Mirth (Terence Davies)
08. State and Main (David Mamet)
09. Best in Show (Christopher Guest)
10. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky)
1999
01. American Beauty (Sam Mendes)**
02. Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh)
03. Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)
04. The Insider (Michael Mann)
05. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
06. Three Kings (David O. Russell)
07. Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce)
08. The Straight Story (David Lynch)
09. The Winslow Boy (David Mamet)
10. The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan)
Hilarious.
One thing still makes me uncertain wether “Spotlight” will win BP. An acting nod for the movie is still quite shaky. Very few precursors, only McAdams at the SAG, nada at the Globes. Movies that win BP without an acting nod usually do that in a landslide (Slumdog, ROTK, Last Emperor). The only movie that didn’t exacly dominate at the Oscars, won BP and didn’t have any acting nods was “Braveheart”. It won “only” five, but was nominated for ten. If “Spotlight” doesn’t get an acting nod, the final tally might be 4-5 nominations (depending if Original Score gets in). That’s hardly enough to be the second, third or even fourth most nominated movie of the year, not with juggernauts like Mad Max, Martian, Revenant and Carol. So I guess once we learn that Keaton or McAdams (or both) are nominated, BP is in the bag. Until then I’ll still have my doubts.
From the guy who left off Avatar on his 2009 list. Demolishing of credibility.
Avatar was an average movie. Would have reduced his credibility of he had included it really
Says you. The general public said otherwise. Sometimes we get it wrong with movies and sometimes we get it right. We surely got it RIGHT here. And word of mouth helped make it the most successful movie ever. Then it got f’d over by the Academy in favor of the least-seen best picture winner in the history of American film, a POS Iraq drama in a conga line of them that year.
Exactly.
Has this guy ever seen a movie in a language that isn’t English?
Exactly…. the least you can expect from a somewhat prominent critic is a fair amount of outlook and curiosity about the actual world of cinema. His lists reek of either ignorance or (maybe even sadder) a compromised conformity to the whole Awards Season bubble.
Maybe he just prefers American/British cinema. I’m not a critic, but I do, as a general rule (with big exceptions, obviously), and I have specific reasons for it – not language-related, but style-related. I expect he does too.
This is good. If the Oscar Winner is something from this list list that would be great as no Big Short or Trumbo. They have not left any other big move out so should be fine.
Oh yeah – Big Short not on the list. Hadn’t thought about that. Could be telling…
In the last few days I kept checking to see if he’d posted his list year. I should have known he wanted to wait until after he saw Star Wars. Interesting that he liked it enough to put it at #9.
It looks like Travers might only match the Oscar list with about 3 or 4 movies this year (as opposed to his usual 6 or so since the switch to more than 5 nominees). But it also looks like the winner is his number 1 this year.
Spotlight, Carol, Mad Max, Brooklyn and The Martian could all easily get in. Star Wars and Steve Jobs I think have at least good chances of squeezing in, and could actually be a lot stronger than people think (there are some key precursor nominations Steve Jobs got that tell me it might get in, even without any major Best Film nominations so far – not that it’s LIKELY to get in, but that it’s a definite possibility), as does Straight Outta Compton, presumably (though I, personally, think that one won’t get in). So he could, in fact, easily get 6-7 again. It’s too early to assume it’ll be 5 or less again, like last year.
Some of those possibilities are more likely than others. My gut tells me Spotlight, Carol and The Martian are in for sure. Mad Max seems like a VERY likely bet for a snub. And I simply don’t buy Brooklyn yet until I see where the other guilds go. Star Wars ain’t happening. I agree Steve Jobs isn’t dead yet, but it’s on life support. I can only confidently predict 3 of these movies to make the list, even though I’m not completely ruling out a couple others.
I agree that it’s possible a lot of them will miss, but I also think it’s at least likely enough that 6 or more of them will get in, so I think it’s premature to call another “off year”, as far as Travers’ list’s predictive powers are concerned. 🙂
I can’t help but think the Steve Jobs placement is a reactionary one. Like if the movie had been more of a critical/commercial success then Travers wouldn’t feel the need to overcompensate.
I don’t know. I mean, he did give it a score of 4 out of 4. The only other ones he did that with this year were Ida, Inside Out, Spotlight, and Carol.
I can’t call my list “done” until after I see THE REVENANT, which is sometime in January I guess. Do official people like Mr. Travers wait ’til they’ve seen everything or do they just put them out there because of some kind of deadline?
Travers waits until he sees everything. His list usually comes out earlier in December, but he obviously waited for Star Wars this year.
By the way, has anyone seen this? It’s probably a pretty good indicator of why Mad Max doesn’t have a chance of winning Best Picture (aside from the lack of a SAG Ensemble nod).
http://www.businessinsider.com/mad-max-fury-road-oscar-chances-2015-12
have to disagree. The article draws a click bait conclusion based on 2 anecdotal evidences. One voter says “it was stupid…and my buddy thought it was stupid too” and suddenly that becomes “majority feels the same”. No they don’t. It’s 2 people. One gave personal account and then told a story about another person that supported his view (that may or may not be true).
I read Feiberg’s annual poll and one voter said “I fell asleep while watching Steve Jobs”. As much as I wish that all voters fell asleep during that movie and snubbed Hambender, that’s just 1 person, 1 anecdotal evidence that doesn’t apply to everyone else.
I agree that critics awards =/= voters but that article proves nothing.
OK – “Hambender” I like more! Just don’t overuse it, like the last one!… 🙂
🙂
Ususally you don’t see the “anonymous Oscar voter hates ____________” articles until AFTER the nominations are announced. Seems to me that some campaign is already freaked out about George Miller.
What a bland list. Bad year for film criticism.
List with Spotlight and – lololol – Steve Jobs as #1 and #2 is epitome of blandness. You can’t find blander double bill even if you tried. this year. They are TIG&TOE of 2015.
But I think Inside Out is a more likely Best Picture nominee than Star Wars. And it also does not change the fact that there still is a genre bias when it comes to Best Picture (looking at Martian and Mad Max).
Inside Out and SW can get in together. the way things are going lately, It’s Revenant that should worry about getting snubbed, and some other movies. I don’t know how important AFI is but the snub must sting considering FOX’s campaign that employed best in the business. The movie isn’t connecting. it has lower META than SW which can’t please FOX (SW is delightful but extremely derivative movie, almost a remake of ANH with some key scenes taken from ESB, so to get beaten by that at MC…ouch for masterpiece shot in real light).
AFI is not super important as say perhaps Critics Choice. However, I think Revenant will still get nominated alongside Brooklyn. Remember that AFI has 10 solid choices, and Oscars can have between 5-10, but mathematically it’s no more than 9.
Good point though AFI covered Top 8-9 without those 2 rather well. All movies on their list are in conversation and predictions.
dream on if you think the revenant is getting snubbed cuz it isn’t ,not after registering with globes, bfca and even with one sag nom. we’ll see who’s really snubbed when pga announces theirs. Also i have a feeling BAFTA will have say in it as well so its far from over yet
I’m just saying that Revenant is a curious case. It isn’t peaking, it isn’t winning, it is only getting nominated. the way I see it, MMFR stole it’s ground-breaking technical wonder and masterpiece thunder. That said, we’ll see if that’s the part of FOX strategy (don’t peak too early or too late, let other movie’s hype blow over and fade) or the movie’s not connecting no matter what they do. I wish someone has better inside knowledge of FOX situation. At least WB is clear now that MMFR is their only BP/BD contender.
hmmm i get wht ur saying but i guess we’re just gonna have to wait until the guilds start their annoucements
I hardly consider AFI one of the more dependable bellwethers. Last year, they picked a top 11, and nearly half of them – ”Foxcatcher,” ”Interstellar,” ”Into the Woods,” ”Nightcrawler” and ”Unbroken” – didn’t go on to get a Best Picture nomination. … It’s too soon to say ”The Revenant” ”isn’t connecting.” It’s made the cut for SAG and Globes; it’s getting nominated a lot, and DiCaprio is even winning his share of Best Actor awards. … Even if you don’t believe it’s connecting with critics, that doesn’t mean it won’t connect with the Guilds. … I believe ”The Revenant” will get a Best Pic nod; those who like it, seem passionate about it.
LOL, they actually had Unbroken on Top 11!!! LMAO! Into the Woods too? Oh boy. It’s a compliment to be left out, I guess. Middlebrow taste if there was ever one. No wonder Rev AND H8 missed.
I’d say Brooklyn is waaaayyyyy closer to TIG&TOE. Unless it’s actually the Philomena of this year.
Those 3 are TIG, TOE (Steve Jobs being TOE, of course, the worse of 2 muahahaha) and Philomena of 2015. 🙂
Did you really like The Revenant THAT much?
Surprised that The Hateful Eight and The Revenant didn’t make his top 10. He tends to love films by Tarantino and Inarritu. Guess this just wasn’t the year for either of them.
Straight outta Compton gonna Selma it’s way to BP. (BP, Sound Mixing)
oh come on peter why no love for the revenant?!!
cause it’s a fad. this year’s fad it to not like it. In 5 years it’s going to be, like, “OMG, best thing eva”.
no it won’t
It’s going to be ranked better in 5 years than what TFA will be ranked in 5 years.
Not to like it? The movie has shown up on tons of critics’ lists. It’s definitely well-liked.
Really Tangerine? I tought it was a mess
A beautiful mess.
I loved it. Very original, a new voice. Currently ranks at my #7 of the year as well.
I saw Tangerine on Netflix and aside from its ‘shot on an iphone 5’ novelty, I fail to see what’s so great about it. Is it because it stars two transgender actresses? Mya Taylor’s performance, in particular, is being singled out as something worthy of being mentioned in the same conversation as Rooney Mara’s, Alicia Vikander’s and Kate Winslet’s in the supporting actress race. Really??
Yes, really.
I didn’t know it was on Netflix. Guess I have to get that done then. Are any other Oscar movies available for us yokels?
There are some leaks if you know how to find it.
Delighted to see ”Brooklyn” in top 5.
Dave Karger of Fandango picks ”Brooklyn” as his No. 1 favorite movie of the year.
ofc it does
Mad Max is the winner
A few should be in bold that are not (Atonement, Babel). And wow, he must have been happy as hell about 2010.
It’s cool that Peter thought so highly of Steve Jobs. A film that was well received by critics, and quickly overlooked by them on their year end lists.
It’s not in my top five but Steve Jobs is top ten for me. I really enjoyed the acting and dialogue.