Summer is a distant memory, the cold is setting in, and the season of the blockbuster is officially over. With a few exceptions ("Thor: The Dark World", "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire", "The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug"), the remaining months of 2013 will be focused on Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. The 2014 ceremony falls on Sunday March 2nd, and any "prestige picture" that wants to remain fresh in voters' minds will be premiering between now and the voting deadline on January 8th. So to get you prepared for the upcoming awards season, here's a list of films to see before the New Year. Obviously, not every film here will end up nabbing a trophy, but included with each entry are that film's best chances for a nomination. We'll find out who made the cut when the nominees are announced on January 16th!
Best Picture; Best Actress (Sophie Nelisse); Best Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush); Best Supporting Actress (Emily Watson)
If there are three things the Academy loves, it's movies based on acclaimed material (novels, plays, true stories), dramas about momentous historical events, and prestigious actors with impressive bodies of work. So this film, based on the best-selling novel by Markus Zusak about a young girl growing up in Germany during the Holocaust and starring the inimitable Geoffrey Rush, is a definite contender for some awards recognition. It remains to be seen how the film will handle the novel's unique narration (the story is told from the point-of-view of Death), but it should be a moving film regardless.
Best Picture; Best Director (Alexander Payne); Best Actor (Bruce Dern); Best Supporting Actress (June Squibb); Best Original Screenplay (Bob Nelson)
Director Alexander Payne has previously been nominated for Best Director for "Sideways" and "The Descendants" (both films were also nominated for Best Picture), and Bruce Dern is a beloved character actor towards the end of a long, storied career who has only been nominated once for Supporting Actor way back in 1978 (for "Coming Home"). The Academy loves awarding bodies of work, so don't be surprised if this little film about an elderly man trekking cross-country to claim his lottery winnings attracts some big attention.
Best Picture; Best Actor (Idris Elba); Best Supporting Actress (Naomie Harris); Best Adapted Screenplay (William Nicholson)
Six of the last ten awards for Best Actor have been given to men playing real-life historical figures (Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Colin Firth as King George VI and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln). It's almost a foregone conclusion that Idris Elba will at the very least be nominated for his turn as Nelson Mandela, the first democratically-elected president of South Africa.
Best Picture; Best Director (Joel & Ethan Coen); Best Actor (Oscar Isaac); Best Supporting Actress (Carey Mulligan); Best Original Screenplay (Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Coen Brothers are Oscar darlings, having previously been nominated a total of thirteen times for five of their films (in Picture, Directing and/or Screenplay categories): "Fargo", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "No Country For Old Men", "A Serious Man" and "True Grit". They have won a total of four awards, including Best Picture in 2008 for "No Country". Don't expect their latest effort, a 1960's period piece about a folk musician, to go unnoticed either.
Best Picture; Best Director (David O. Russell); Best Actor (Christian Bale); Best Actress (Amy Adams); Best Supporting Actor (Bradley Cooper); Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Lawrence); Best Original Screenplay (David O. Russell, Eric Singer)
It would take some cataclysmic event to keep this film from heaping up the nominations in January. Together, the director and cast of "American Hustle" (which also includes heavyweights Robert De Niro and Jeremy Renner) have been nominated for a total of 20 Oscars. For this film, O. Russell has combined the casts of his two previous films (Cooper and Lawrence from "Silver Linings Playbook", Bale and Adams from "The Fighter") into one unstoppable juggernaut. Bonus: if nominated, this will be Jennifer Lawrence's third Oscar nomination before the age of 24.
Best Picture; Best Director (John Lee Hancock); Best Actress (Emma Thompson); Best Supporting Actor (Tom Hanks); Best Original Screenplay (Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith)
The man who directed Sandra Bullock to her Oscar win for 2009's "The Blind Side" is back, this time with a film telling the true story of the clash between Walt Disney and author P.L. Travers during the struggle to adapt her novel, "Mary Poppins", to the screen. If Hanks, as Disney himself, nabs a Supporting nomination for this film, he could be nominated for two acting awards in two separate categories this year, alongside his all-but-guaranteed nom for "Captain Phillips".
Best Picture; Best Director (John Wells); Best Actress (Julia Roberts); Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep); Best Supporting Actress (Margo Martindale); Best Adapted Screenplay (Tracy Letts)
This is about as "prestigious" as a "prestige pic" can get: adapted by a famous playwright from his own epic Tony Award-winning play about a hyper-dysfunctional family starring the two queens of American cinema, Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, as a vicious, brawling mother/daughter duo. To be fair, adaptations of famous plays aren't always a sure thing (see Roman Polanski's flaccid "Carnage"), but "August" packs enough starpower (including Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Juliette Lewis and Abigail Breslin) that there's no danger of it slipping under the radar.
Best Picture; Best Director (Ben Stiller); Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Conrad)
Several comedic actors have managed to earn awards recognition when they leave their comfort zones for more dramatic fare. (Think Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting" and "Dead Poets Society" or Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" and "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind".) So although this fantastical tale of a lonely office worker who embarks on a global adventure may seem like an odd fit for Stiller (who directed and stars in the film), expect him to earn some buzz if it turns out to be, you know, any good.
Best Picture; Best Director (Martin Scorsese); Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio); Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill); Best Adapted Screenplay (Terence Winter)
Scorsese and DiCaprio have become two of America's most famous modern collaborators. This will be their fifth film together after "Gangs Of New York", "The Aviator", "The Departed" and "Shutter Island". The movie is based on the salacious memoirs of a corrupt Wall Street stockbroker, and was adapted by Winter, the creator of two of television's most acclaimed shows: "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire". Co-starring Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler and Jean Dujardin (2012's Best Actor winner for "The Artist"), "The Wolf" is certainly bound to rack up the noms come January.
Also: Check out our reviews of Oscar hopefuls that have already opened! ("All Is Lost", "Before Midnight", "Blue Is The Warmest Color", "Blue Jasmine", "Captain Phillips", "The Counselor", "Fruitvale Station", "Gravity", "Lee Daniels' The Butler", "Prisoners", "Rush", "12 Years A Slave")
