Entertainment
2015's Oscar Best Picture Hopefuls Are a Carbon Copy of Last Year's Nominees — PHOTOS
Every year it's the same song and dance. We get all amped up about which movies will earn Academy Award nominations in the esteemed category of Best Picture, but ultimately find the same material filling up the list time after time. Right now, we're looking at the usual batch to vie for the Oscar in February 2015: the civil rights picture, the transformative performance-based biopic, the token sci-fi blockbuster. The roundup is so predictable, you can just about sync up every Best Picture hopeful of the year with a nominee from the last go 'round.
If we look at 2014's top honored films (12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips), we'll find that just about every one of them has a 2015 counterpart. So what's this year's answer to The Wolf of Wall Street? To Gravity? To Her? We've got a few ideas on the issue.
Check out the gallery to find out which of this year's Oscar hopefuls match up with last year's nominees!
Image: Paramount Pictures
THE CIVIL RIGHTS PICTURE
Last year, it was 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen’s hard-hitting film adaptation of the personal writings of Solomon Northrup.
Image: Fox Searchlight Pictures
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'SELMA'
On-the-rise director Ava DuVernay’s feature about Martin Luther King’s 1965 voting rights marches through Alabama.
Image: Paramount Pictures
THE LAVISH, STYLISTIC SHOWBIZ FLICK
Last year, it was American Hustle, a flashy, star-studded farce about the showmanship of the criminal world.
Image: Columbia Pictures
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'BIRDMAN'
One long shot (ostensibly) that winds in and out of the dressing rooms and damaged psyches of the varied actors and actresses giving themselves up to an ill-fated Broadway production.
Image: Fox Searchlight Pictures
THE SOCIOPOLITICALLY CHARGED TRUE STORY THRILLER
Last year, it was Captain Phillips, the high-octane drama that pit the lovable Tom Hanks against a team of Somali pirates.
Image: Columbia Pictures
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'UNBROKEN'
Angelina Jolie’s second stab at directing: the story of America’s Olympic track star, World War II hero, and POW Louie Zamperini.
Image: Universal Pictures
THE BIOPIC ROOTED IN A TRANSFORMATIVE PERFORMANCE
Last year, it was Dallas Buyers Club, the McConaughssance-launching drama about the American medical system’s irresponsible treatment of AIDS and HIV.
Image: Focus Features
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING'
For which star Eddie Redmayne has already received substantial praise thanks to his depiction of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking’s struggles with motor neuron disease.
Image: Focus Features
...AND 'THE IMITATION GAME'
Yeah, there’s two of these this year (luckily there were only nine nominees at the 86th Annual Academy Awards, so we can sneak one more in this time around). In this film, Benedict Cumberbatch plays scientific genius Alan Turing, whose chief sources of adversity are the homophobic British government, as well as his own inability to connect with other human beings.
Image: The Weinstein Company
THE "FUN" MOVIE BY A CRITICALLY BELOVED DIRECTOR
Last year, it was Martin Scorsese’s raucous “white collar crime” movie The Wolf of Wall Street, in which the esteemed Taxi Driver helmer offered his answer on Ace Ventura protruding from a mechanical rhinoceros.
Image: Paramount Pictures
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'GONE GIRL'
David Fincher’s continued love affair with airport literature results in a two-hour-long mind game that offers plenty of laughs (and some uncomfortable insights into modern marriage).
Image: 20th Century Fox
THE SWEET, SAD HUMAN STORY
Last year, it was Nebraska, which examined the tattered relationship between a sullen man and his long tormented father.
Image: Paramount Pictures
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'LOVE IS STRANGE'
The tragic tale of two longtime lovers torn apart (physically) after finally tying the knot, and the toll that their separation has on their lives and relationship.
Image: Sony Pictures Classics
THE SPACE MOVIE
Last year, it was Gravity, in which Sandra Bullock and George Clooney go into space.
Image: Warner Bros.
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'INTERSTELLAR'
In which Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway go into space.
Image: Paramount Pictures
THE INNOVATIVE SLICE OF LIFE
Last year, it was Her, which used a high-concept sci-fi premise to tell a story about romantic relationships.
Image: Warner Bros.
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'BOYHOOD'
Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making film which uses an eternally impressive backstage narrative to tell a story about growing up.
Image: IFC Films
THE ONE YOU HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD OF
Last year, it was Philomena, which I think was about a woman getting in touch with her estranged son, maybe? And there was a journalist involved?
Image: The Weinstein Company
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'A MOST VIOLENT YEAR'
Oooh, Jessica Chastain! I love her! Maybe I should check this out!
Image: A24 Films
THE FILM THAT TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED, BUT WASN'T
Last year, it was Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers sulking New York folk tale and quite possibly the best film of 2013.
Image: CBS Films
THIS YEAR, IT'S 'THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL'
Wes Anderson’s wonderful comedy caper set in and around the illustrious halls of the eponymous European luxury resort… among many other films, of course (like Ida and Only Lovers Left Alive, for instance).
Image: Fox Searchlight Pictures
