Ranking the 2013 Best Picture Nominees, Plus Some Observations

I have now posted reviews for all nine films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  I am not done yet.  I intend to write reviews for those films I have seen that received other Oscar nominations, and that I would recommend.  Look for reviews of Searching for Sugar Man, Flight, ParaNorman, Moonrise Kingdom, The Hobbit, Wreck-It Ralph, and others in the future.  You can read my previously posted reviews for nominees The Avengers here, Prometheus here, and Brave here.  You can read my comments on Snow White and the Huntsman, a film I didn’t recommend, here.

In the meantime, here is how I would rate the nine Best Picture nominees from best to not quite the best.  I have also included how these films are ranked according to the Rotten Tomatoes critics (RTC), the Rotten Tomatoes audiences (RTA), and the IMDB voters. 

Me	Nominee	Reviewed?	RTC	RTA	IMDB
1	Django Unchained	Read my review here	6	1	1
2	Argo	Read my review here	1	2	4
3	Life of Pi	Read my review here	7	4	2
4	Silver Linings Playbook	Read my review here	4	3	3
5	Lincoln	Read my review here	5	5	7
6	Amour	Read my review here	3	6	5
7	Zero Dark Thirty	Read my review here	2	7	8
8	Les Miserables	Read my review here	9	8	6
9	Beasts of the Southern Wild	Read my review here	8	9	9

As you can see, I align closest with the Rotten Tomatoes audience voters.  I’m most out of touch with the professional critics (or are they the ones that are out of touch?)

A few more observations now that I have seen the nine movies:

1. Two years ago only one of the ten nominated films exceeded two hours (Inception).  It was a welcome change from the three hour long depress-fests that often get nominated.  Last year six of the nine films were over two hours long, but none were over 2 ½ hours.  This year eight of the nine films are at least two hours long, and four of them are at least 2 ½ hours long.  Only Beasts of the Southern Wild, at 93 minutes, is short by Academy standards.  This trend back to longer and longer nominees is not one I am thrilled by.
2. Last year I liked only six of the nine Best Picture nominees enough to recommend them.  This year is different.  All nine films were ones I was happy to recommend to others.
3. Last year only one of the nine nominees was rated R, and that was only for a few bad words.  That was quite a change from years past when the nominees were almost always R rated films.  This year we edge back more towards the past.  Four of the nominees are rated R, four are rated PG-13, and one is rated PG.  Just like last year when Spielberg’s movie War Horse got a PG-13 when anyone else would have gotten an R for the violence, this year’s Lincoln would have been an R movie for language, if directed by anyone else.
4. Last year was for misty eyed nostalgia (The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and Hugo).  This year is for re-creating true events.  Lincoln is about the battle over the 13^th Amendment to abolish slavery, Argo is about the real-life attempt to get trapped Americans out of Iran in 1980, and Zero Dark Thirty is about the search for, and assault on, Osama Bin Laden.
5. Three of the five Best Actress nominees have done at least one nude scene.  Jennifer Lawrence has not and she is the front-runner.  If she wins the Best Actress Oscar, this will break a string of 27 straight years, and all but 4 years since 1970, where the Best Actress winner has done nudity.  Many of the winners appeared nude in the role that won them the Oscar.  So much for “real actresses don’t do nude scenes.”  By the way, I wrote the same thing about Viola Davis last year and she ended up not winning.  Meryl Streep did, thus continuing the streak.