When it comes right down to it, they are going to vote for what they like. Will it be Alfonso Cuaron’s breathtaking sci-fi masterpiece or will it be Steve McQueen’s heartfelt tale of the evils of slavery? I think the choice here is pretty clear, but then again, the Academy and I don’t see eye-to-eye too often on Best Picture. In fact, in my opinion, this is the tenth anniversary since they actually chose THE best picture of the year (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). They came awfully close with The King’s Speech (second only to Inception for 2010), but officially it has been quite a while, so no time like the present for them to get back to it.
As I said, all we can do right now is look at the clues to see where they point, and at the moment they seem to be pointing towards Gravity. Of course, most of this is just speculation based on what we’ve seen before, so it’s still entirely possible that 12 Years a Slave will take top honors on March 2nd, but as I mentioned before, it would be a little weird to see the Best Picture winner take half the number of Oscars that another film gets. A Best Picture winner not winning the most Oscars is already something of a rarity. You may recall that it happened last year when Life of Pi won four, while Argo won only three, but that was just by one award. This year would be more similar to when Cabaret won eight Oscars before losing Best Picture to The Godfather (which, believe it or not, only took three Oscars), an event that happened more than 40 years ago.
The last of the major awards, the BAFTAs (the British Academy Awards), are coming up on February 16th, so perhaps they’ll shed a little more light on things. They’ve already shown a tremendous amount of support for Gravity as well, giving the film the most nominations with 11, including one for Best Original Screenplay. A Best Film win there could solidify its status as the frontrunner, whereas a win for 12 Years a Slave could show that we really are heading for a split year between Best Picture and Best Director. Then again, we could also have 12 Years win Best Film and Gravity win Best British Film, which wouldn’t tell us anything at all. Either way, it’ll be quite an exciting show, as will the Oscars on March 2nd. Which film will end up taking the Best Picture Oscar? For once we’ll just have to wait to find out.
Which film do you think will end up taking Best Picture on Oscar night and why? Let us know in the comments below!