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127 Hours

Pros: Danny Boyle is still riding a wave of support from Slumdog Millionaire, and his latest effort is getting reviews almost as good (91% vs. Slumdog's 94% on Rotten Tomatoes). Mostly, the raves have focused on star James Franco, who has emerged as Colin Firth's biggest challenger for Best Actor this year. But this film is getting a lot of love overall, and is, like Slumdog, an inspirational story with a lot of grit in it. It's based on a true story, but isn't a period piece, which could strike a nice balance with both the older and younger members of the Academy.

Cons: There are a number of questions surrounding this film: is it too small a story in scope for the full ranks of the Academy to embrace? Is it too similar to Sean Penn's Into the Wild, which failed to garner much Academy support? It certainly seems like if you can't connect with the protagonist, this whole movie is going to be lost on you. There's no love story, no real topical relevance, and no big action scenes. The question marks are what is holding back this film right now.

True Grit

Pros The Coen Brothers remaking a classic Western (technically readapting a novel) with Academy-friendly stars Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin? How can this go wrong? It's sure to get a ton of critical support and should do very well with audiences. John Wayne won an Oscar for the first True Grit, and Bridges, still glowing from his first Oscar for Crazy Heart, is generating a lot of buzz for this film. The story of revenge and overcoming adversity will doubtless strike a chord with voters. This could be a very big hit and a very big winner.

Cons: Notice how every single sentence in the above paragraph is making assumptions about what is going to happen? That's not an accident. The Coens' latest is the big unknown in this year's Oscar race, waiting until the very last second to break into the field. Typically when a studio does this it means they know they have something good, and films that have utilized this strategy generally do get nominated. But since Million Dollar Baby perfected the late release, it hasn't worked so well. Munich and Letters from Iwo Jima scored nominations based almost solely on the respect the Academy has for the directors (are the Coens at the same level as Spielberg and Eastwood? Not quite.) but neither were serious contenders for the Oscar. Until we see how this film is received we really can't call it a favorite for anything, although it is extremely likely that it will get a nomination.

So those are the five films that, for a multitude of reasons, are serious contenders to win Best Picture, but cannot be called the favorites. Since we live in a world in which ten films get nominated, we can say with all but the utmost certainty that when the nominations are announced, these films will be mentioned as Best Picture nominees. There are other contenders for spots in the final ten that don't have legitimate shots at the big prize, and are mostly there as fillers. In addition to the above five, I see the category being rounded out by Black Swan, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The Town, and Toy Story 3. Obviously there will be some spoilers, and films like Winter's Bone, Secretariat, Shutter Island, How to Train Your Dragon, Waiting for “Superman,” and The Way Back are really hoping that they can sneak in with a nomination without any serious hopes of taking home the big prize.

But the big five are the ones that people will be talking about when they talk about winners, rather than nominees, and while many people are pointing at one or the other as the film most likely to win, no consensus is building around one in particular. Of course, this could change when the precursors start getting announced, but it might not. I wouldn't be surprised if The King's Speech won the Drama Golden Globe, The Social Network won the SAG Ensemble Award, Inception won the PGA Best Picture, and 127 Hours or even Black Swan won the Director's Guild Award. Then we'd be waiting until the Oscars to have any idea what's going on.

One thing we know is that the winners over the last several years have been the films that have slowly built momentum and peaked shortly before the voting ended. Will one of these five peak too early? The Social Network might, as could The King's Speech, if its wide release paints it as the favorite. Of course, any one of these could dominate the precursors and roll to victory on Oscar night, taking all of the suspense out of the race. As always, only time will tell.

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