There's a buzz among movie fans each year on the topic of which film
will win at the upcoming Oscars. The anticipation towards this mounts as
we go through the various film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, etc.
ultimately vying for good Oscar positioning. But since I've been doing
this 1001 blog for so long, when I see the Oscar nominations come up, I
don't think as much about who will win, as I think about which films
will be in the next edition of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book! I guess I've become sort of brainwashed myself in that respect.
Before I look at the Oscar nominees for 2015, I want to briefly look at 2014. There were eight Best Picture nominees for that year. When you also throw in the Best Foreign Language winner and Best Documentary winner, seven out of these ten films made the new 1001 movie list.
These films were:
Birdman
Boyhood
Grand Budapest Hotel
Whiplash
The Theory of Everything
Citizenfour (Best Documentary)
Ida (Best Foreign Language Film)
(The nominees that didn't make it into the book were Selma, American Sniper and The Imitation Game.)
Before I look at the Oscar nominees for 2015, I want to briefly look at 2014. There were eight Best Picture nominees for that year. When you also throw in the Best Foreign Language winner and Best Documentary winner, seven out of these ten films made the new 1001 movie list.
These films were:
Birdman
Boyhood
Grand Budapest Hotel
Whiplash
The Theory of Everything
Citizenfour (Best Documentary)
Ida (Best Foreign Language Film)
(The nominees that didn't make it into the book were Selma, American Sniper and The Imitation Game.)
The only three other new entries
last year for the new 1001 edition were Leviathan (a Best Foreign film nominee), Under
the Skin (a cult sci-fi film) and Guardians of the Galaxy (a
mega-hit comic book film).
So if the previous year is any
indication, many of the following list of movies from the 2015 nominees
(including Documentary, Foreign and Animated) will be in the new addition for
2016. I've listed them in order of the likelihood I think they'll be in the
next book ed (I'm assuming there will be a 2016 edition, but even if there
isn't-I'll play along anyway.).
Spotlight |
1. Spotlight-The last fifteen or so Best Picture winners have all made it onto the 1001 book in at least one edition and I don't think Spotlight will be an exception. This is a riveting investigative drama which reminded me a lot of All the President's Men and also boasts a very strong ensemble cast. The subject matter of the film also has the weight that the 1001 movie book likes (as does the Academy). It did only win two Academy Awards, which isn't a big total for a Best Picture winner, but I think it makes the next edition easily. |
The Big Short |
3. The Revenant-The 1001 list likes Leonardo DiCaprio and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (both Oscar winners for this) and I think they'll also like this brutal tale of survival in the wilderness. And I still can't get that freaking bear attack scene out of my head!
Son of Saul |
The Martian |
5. The Martian-Now the list begins to get a little harder to predict. Crowd pleasing commercial adaptation of Andy Weir's geeky technical novel that doesn't scrimp on the details of space and survival, but was still accessible enough to a mass audience to make it a hit. Might make the book, but I'm on the fence on this one.
Mad Max: Fury Road |
Room |
Bridge of Spies |
9. Brooklyn-Old fashion love story and a nice little film with pleasant shots of the Irish
Amy |
Inside Out |
11. Inside Out-Undeniably clever film about (literally) the inner emotions of a young girl, but Best Animated Feature Film winners never seem to get into the book. I liked this year's Zootopia even more and I hope that one beats the odds and lands in the 2017 edition.
Traditionally, I assume Best Picture and Best Director winners as locks and always gamble that Best Foreign Feature will make it in.
ReplyDeleteI have hopes for Fury Road--I think it's a hell of a great piece of filmmaking. Science fiction is always a longshot though, but if it doesn't make it, I have hopes for Ex Machina.
Like it or not, The Hateful 8 has a better than average chance. More Tarantino makes it in than doesn't...it's at least 50/50.
I like Ex Machina as well and wouldn't disagree with that choice. Carol is another possibility and I'd really love to see the Argentinian comedy Wild Tales included.
ReplyDeleteJust for the record: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1001-Movies-You-Must-Before/dp/1844038890/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1464990108&sr=8-5&keywords=1001+movies+you+must+see+before+you+die
ReplyDeleteI emailed Steve to let him know about it tonight, & then I saw this post; now, the wait till October begins.
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ReplyDeleteNo giant surprises from the ones listed on the blurb. I wasn't sure about The Force Awakens being included, but I guess they couldn't leave out the biggest money maker of all-time.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen any of these movies yet, as I'm always way behind. But I'd still put money on Mad Max, Force Awakens and Revenant because of all the hype and money.
ReplyDeleteNicolas-The link that Adol posted did included all three of the movies you mentioned. Of course, I saw Interstellar on a blurb for last year's edition, but that one ended up NOT in the book.
ReplyDelete