The 86th Academy Awards won’t be held until March 2nd next year, but I say it’s never too early to start speculating about how this year’s line-up might look like. In terms of potential candidates for Best Picture, the first half of 2013 has been almost entirely barren, with only a few long-shot candidates like Jeff Nichol’s drama Mud and Richard Linklater’s romantic trilogy-capper Before Midnight.
The second half of the year looks much more promising. We’ve already seen and applauded Ryan Coogler’s stirring Fruitvale Station and Woody Allen’s dark relationship drama Blue Jasmine, two films that deserve to be in consideration, particularly for their outstanding lead actors, but may have hit theaters too early to stick in Oscar voters’ minds. And then of course we have this fall’s upcoming slate, which is jam-packed with possible nominees.
Take a look at this ridiculously early, totally speculative list of the top ten movies hitting theaters this fall that we can expect to see in this year’s Oscar race.