8 Oscar Nominees That Deserve To Win (But Will Definitely Lose)

Anybody who's read The Hollywood Reporter's annual Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots series will know that Academy Awards aren't always handed out based on merit. In fact, it's rare to find one of THR's secret Oscar voters voting based on quality; more often than not, a vote will be cast based on what the voter's peers are doing or whether or not they feel a candidate 'deserves' it. Sometimes voters make their decisions without even having watched the movies.

Brogan Morris Jan 25, 2016 1:34 pm2016-01-24T12:36:41-05:00

2) Best Picture

Recommended Videos

Will win: The Revenant, or Spotlight

Should win: The Big Short

Perhaps it’s because Adam McKay’s The Big Short is something of a comedy-drama, and isn’t just straight-up po-faced, that the movie is being judged as a lesser product (comedy rarely does as well at the Oscars as drama). Whatever the reason, The Big Short appears set to be an also-ran at this year’s Oscars, trumped by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s worthy The Revenant or Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight to Best Picture.

The Academy often rewards movies based on their subject matter, and 2016 seems an odd year to forego the practice. The Big Short is about the defining event of the last ten years – the housing market crash that led to a global economic crisis – and its power is in how it sells this most complicated and tedious of subjects to a mainstream audience. It’s a deeply important, incredibly timely message movie, that also happens to be one of the most entertaining, confidently put-together and quietly powerful of last year.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9