The 2014-2015 Oscar season is well underway, with festivals providing the cream of the crop and a few major studio films laced throughout. Who will be left standing when the dust clears at the 87th annual Academy Awards? More importantly, what will the journey of discovery be like every step of the way?
Many in the industry are looking to this season as a slight one, at least compared to recent years. But the deeper you dive into the fray, the more you realize that the race only seems slight because it's stretched thin across a wide variety of filmmaking. And that variety is what's so exciting. Biopics and traditional genre fare are there to be found, but so are subversive comedies and bleak genre efforts. Spit and you'll surely hit a master filmmaker as there's no shortage of them in the season and studios are roaring as much as indies and dependents.
It's a pretty exciting race for Best Picture, actually, and we've got you covered on who's in contention and who's just a pretender. Is Angelina Jolie's on a crash course with inevitability, or does “Unbroken” work in execution as well as it seems to on paper? Is Christopher Nolan's most epic endeavor to date the mojo Paramount Pictures finally needed or will the Academy turn its nose up at genre yet again in this race? Does The Weinstein Company have a thoroughbred in “The Imitation Game” that will take festival success to the highest heights this season?
All those questions and more will be answered over the next couple of months, but for now, let this compendium be your guide through the Best Picture Oscar race. And check back each week for a new category as we continue to chug into the prestige months of the fall.