The Politics of Picking the Oscar for Best Picture
Best Picture Politics
Long after you have given up and gone to sleep on Sunday night—last year’s Oscars weren’t the longest of all time (that was 2002, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, four hours plus), but this will still go on past the bedtime of most reasonable humans—one of three films will become the 87 film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It’s going to be Birdman, Boyhood, or American Sniper.
No matter what happens, none of those three films will become the worst film to win Best Picture. (That honor belongs to The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days or, my pick, Crash.) And there’s honor in not winning, of course: The list of great films not to win Best Picture Oscars happens to include every film on the venerated Sight and Sound poll’s list of the 10 greatest movies of all time. But certainly the winner is always the story: This is an election, after all. (An incredibly complicated one at that.)