Oscarstravaganza: Best Picture 2010

The big one. Best Picture is, of course, an original Oscar category although in the award's inaugural year there were two Best Picture winners: Wings, which won "Most Outstanding Production" and Sunrise, which won "Most Artistic Quality Production." For reasons I've never understood, Wings is always included amongst the list of historical Best Picture winners, but Sunrise is not.

This year's nominees:


Avatar
Total Nominations: 9
Box Office to Date: a kajillionty dollars or some shit - more money than I can fathom, at any rate.
Chances: It's got the technical categories pretty well locked up and it has nominations for Director and Editing, which are key for any bona fide Best Picture contender, but it lacks Screenplay and Acting nominations, which undercuts its chances a bit. Still, with 9 nominations and so much money in the bank, it's obviously earned some love.


The Blind Side
Total Nominations: 2
Box Office to Date: $247 million
Chances: Slim. If it were five nominee year, this one probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere near Best Picture.


District 9
Total Nominations: 4
Box Office to Date: $115 million
Chances: Unlikely. It secured Editing and Screenplay nominations and has a nice "little movie that could" narrative going for it, but with only 4 nominations it hasn't been very widely embraced.


An Education
Total Nominations: 3
Box Office to Date: $11 million
Chances: Sadly small. A great movie that totally got lost in the Oscar shuffle and will probably go home empty handed.


The Hurt Locker
Total Nominations: 9
Box Office to Date: $12 million
Chances: Pretty good, given the almost clean sweep it's made of precurser awards. The only thing that casts doubt in my mind (aside from the backlash that has cropped up in the last week or so, which I would think would be "too little, too late" in terms of swaying voters) is the poor box office showing. If it wins, it will be the lowest grossing winner by a pretty wide margin and AMPAS loves its blockbusters.


Inglorious Basterds
Total Nominations: 8
Box Office to Date: $120 million
Chances: Pretty damn good if the pro-Avatar and pro-Hurt Locker camps essentially eat each other and split the vote. It's got nominations in all the key categories (Director, Editing, Acting, Screenplay, plus nominations in the technical categories) and it made a nice chunk of change. If AMPAS want to find a happy medium between box office beheamoth Avatar and critical darling Hurt Locker, this is it.


Precious
Total Nominations: 6
Box Office to Date: $46 million
Chances: Not bad, not great. It has Director, Editing, Screenplay and Acting nominations, however its lack of nominations in the technical categories puts it at a bit of a disadvantage.


A Serious Man
Total Nominations: 2
Box Office to Date: $9 million
Chances: A long shot, at best.


Up
Total Nominations: 5
Box Office to Date: $293 million
Chances: The fact that its nominated as Best Animated Feature pretty much guarantees that it won't win here, because voters already have an out for passing it up.


Up In The Air
Total Nominations: 6
Box Office to Date: $80 million
Chances: Like Inglorious Basterds this one could benefit from an Avatar-Hurt Locker vote split, but like Precious it's going into battle without technical nominations. Unlike Precious it goes in without an Editing nomination as well, which puts it at a major disadvantage.