Ranking the 2014 Best Picture Nominees
Tags: Birdman, Oscars, Academy Awards, Film Reviews, Movies

Ranking the 2014 Best Picture Nominees

Oscar bait packed the house, but Academy Award went to ‘Birdman’

The winners of the Academy Awards’ acting Oscars gather backstage during the 87th Oscars in Hollywood on Feb. 22, 2015. From left are Patricia Arquette (Best Supporting Actress for “Boyhood), Eddie Redmayne (Actor, “The Theory of Everything”), Julianne Moore (Actress, “Still Alice”) and J.K. Simmons (Supporting Actor, “Whiplash”). Photo courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

By Todd Hill

The Academy Awards are rich with tradition — well, perhaps “rich” isn’t the best word to use in this instance.

If a tradition can be defined, snarkily, as something that’s repeatedly done a certain way simply because it’s always been done that way then yes, the Oscars are most assuredly traditional. And no, this usually doesn’t work out to be a good thing.

The phenomenon of “Oscar bait,” so called, is one such tried and true Academy Awards tradition. And it is long past time for it to be ditched. The lineup of 2014’s Best Picture nominees is just another example of why.

Truth be told, the year was a weak one for superlative American films, and sometimes that just happens. But even so, falling back on Oscar bait is the best the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could do in this case?

I don’t want to be limiting in my definition of Oscar bait, but as I see it, the term can most readily be applied to motion pictures about famous historical figures, especially famous historical figures with a disability of some kind, that are foisted upon moviegoers in a naked attempt to garner the prestige that comes with awards.

I’m not saying such lives shouldn’t be dramatized. The stories contained in these lives are important, and often inspirational. And once Hollywood gets its hands on them, they have a way of becoming formulaic, predictable and dull. No fewer than three of 2014’s Best Picture nominees hewed to this dreary tradition.

Beyond that, the 87th Academy Awards transpired as expected, with the films harboring the most nominations winning the most Oscars. Every Best Picture nominee won at least one award. No huge upsets occurred in the major award categories — well, Michael Keaton should’ve won Best Actor for his high-wire performance in “Birdman,” not newcomer Eddie Redmayne, who took home the award for playing a famous historical figure with a disability (Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”). But that wasn’t an upset.

Alas, the Academy’s continually awkward stumbling over diversity was still very much in evidence at this ceremony, which inevitably played out in the selection of Oscar nominees, if not winners. We can argue whether the AMPAS has made tangible progress on diversity since. I’ll have an opportunity to do just that in the paragraphs that follow.

Below is my personal ranking of 2014’s eight Best Picture nominees, maybe half of which — in my opinion — fully deserved their nominations.

Ellar Coltrane, left, as the title character in Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” gets some fatherly advice from Ethan Hawke. Photo courtesy of IFC Films

Boyhood

It’s so much more than a gimmick. In fact, as gimmicks go, it’s not even original. To tell a simple and relatively plotless story about growing up, writer/director Richard Linklater filmed his small cast over 12 long years, in real time. Of course, filmmaker Michael Apted has done much the same thing with his “Up” series of documentary films, and even Linklater had earlier toyed with the concept, for his “Before” trilogy. In any event, the result here is nothing less than a revelatory examination of a fractured but functional American family. Critics fell especially hard for the movie, especially the performance of Patricia Arquette as the mother (she won an Oscar for her effort), but also those of Linklater regular Ethan Hawke and Ellar Coltrane, who so visibly matures as the boy of the title. Critics often have perspectives far removed from the average cinephile, but this was far and away the best picture of 2014. Remarkably relatable, the movie is impossible to watch without being forced to reflect on our own adolescence.

Oscar nominations, 6 — Best Picture, Director (Richard Linklater), Supporting Actor (Ethan Hawke), Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette), Original Screenplay (Linklater), Film Editing. Oscar wins, 1 — Supporting Actress.

An under-dressed Michael Keaton draws a crowd in Manhattan’s Times Square in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman” (2014), the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Birdman

Hollywood loves to watch movies about itself. That’s not the only reason this movie won the Best Picture Oscar, but it was surely more of a factor than Academy voters would like to admit. This is a real high-wire act from director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and a very game cast, all long takes and what looks and feels like gratuitous improv. We come away feeling confirmed in our belief that actors are a bunch of crazy pricks, and feeling privileged to have been granted the access to see it for ourselves, as a story unfolds about a washed-up movie star famous for playing a superhero attempting to go legit by helming a prestigious play on Broadway. As the title character, a super-charged Michael Keaton leaves us wishing the movies had had more use for him. Edward Norton niftily plays off his public persona, and Emma Stone announces her arrival as the real deal. Then a cardinal sin is committed. After soaring for 90 minutes, the film utterly runs out of gas for its final half hour. It doesn’t ruin all that came before, but it doesn’t help either.

Oscar nominations, 9 — Best Picture, Director (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu), Actor (Michael Keaton), Supporting Actor (Edward Norton), Supporting Actress (Emma Stone), Original Screenplay (Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo), Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing. Oscar wins, 4 — Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography.

Ralph Fiennes appears in Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” as a hotel concierge who has a way with ladies of a certain age (check out the colors of the drinks match the color of Fiennes’s tie!). Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson dedicated this exceptionally studied addition to his extraordinarily fussy filmography to Stefan Zweig, a once hugely popular Austrian writer long since lost to time. This trivial tidbit won’t do anything but perhaps get you in the right frame of mind for the movie, which is the only way I’ve ever been able to appreciate this filmmaker’s work. They’ve all been of a piece — primary colors, centered frames, dense production design, deadpan acting, and of course that consistently twee tone. And except for this movie, they’ve never gotten close to a Best Picture nomination. What makes “Budapest” stand out? As I stated above, 2014 was a weak year for nominees in this category; that’s certainly one explanation. It’s encouraging to see a comedy so honored, which virtually never happens, and the movie is indeed great fun until Anderson’s relentless stylizing inevitably becomes insufferable. But hey, a shout-out here for Ralph Fiennes, who as hotel concierge Gustav H. offers up some of his best work (alas, no nomination).

Oscar nominations, 9 — Best Picture, Director (Wes Anderson), Original Screenplay (Anderson, Hugo Guinness), Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Original Score, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling. Oscar wins, 4 — Original Score, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling.

Benedict Cumberbatch, seated at center, portrays British WWII code breaker Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game,” for which Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, left, received acting nominations. Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company

The Imitation Game

I’m lumping the three Oscar bait-iest of this year’s Best Picture nominees in the middle of my ranking here only because that seems like the least offensive place to put them. They’re essentially interchangeable in terms of quality; this biopic about Britain’s WWII Enigma code-breaking Alan Turing comes up first in my ranking only because my memory of it is the most vivid of the three. And if that’s not faint praise I don’t know what is. The story of how the Nazis’ codes were broken is fascinating, perhaps better suited for the page than screen, although this movie’s stab at it is certainly game. Considerably less well executed is its treatment of Turing’s struggles stemming from his homosexuality, largely relegated to the end of the movie. The best thing the picture has going for it is Benedict Cumberbatch in the starring role. The actor, whose film career peaked much faster than it should have, manages to cast a sympathetic sheen over an anti-social character who had few friends in real life.

Oscar nominations, 8 — Best Picture, Director (Morton Tyldum), Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), Supporting Actress (Keira Knightley), Adapted Screenplay (Graham Moore), Editing, Production Design, Original Score. Oscar wins, 1 — Adapted Screenplay.

British actor David Oyelowo stars as U.S. civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Ava DuVernay film “Selma.” Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Selma

Even though the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most important figures in American history, the definitive film (or better yet, miniseries) about the martyred civil rights leader remains to be made. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay never intended this to be that movie — it’s focused not on King, but his movement’s three protest marches in Alabama in 1965. But for a quality motion picture with a searing performance by David Oyelowo as King, this surely deserved more than two Oscar nominations, especially one for Oyelowo. Seriously, is this what racial representation looked like to the Academy in 2014? Token award nominations don’t help, and that’s certainly what these nods look like. Real representation, of course, consists of affording minority voices — be they black, Hispanic, or simply female — the opportunity to be heard on the big screen. OK, getting off my soapbox now (will get back on it later).

Oscar nominations, 2 — Best Picture, Original Song. Oscar wins, 1 — Original Song.

Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) and theoretical physicist-to-be Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) meet cute in “The Theory of Everything.” Photo courtesy of Focus Features

The Theory of Everything

If the cliché is true about there being a strong woman behind every successful man, one has to wonder why the woman who should’ve been at the center of this movie didn’t get more screen time. Granted, the man here is Stephen Hawking (portrayed by Eddie Redmayne), the world-renowned theoretical physicist who had to contend with a crippling motor-neuron disease for the majority of his life. But most of us are at least moderately familiar with his story, even if we understand next to nothing about quantum theory (don’t look for this movie to fill in the blanks). This picture introduces us to Hawking’s first wife, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), who stood by his side for 30 years despite immense challenges — but then that’s all it really does. This is a standard-issue biopic with some undeniably affecting moments, but it doesn’t go anywhere particularly interesting or do anything especially surprising. It would’ve been a great fit for, say, PBS.

Oscar nominations, 5 — Best Picture, Actor (Eddie Redmayne), Actress (Felicity Jones), Adapted Screenplay (Anthony McCarten), Original Score. Oscar wins, 1 — Actor.

In “Whiplash,” J.K. Simmons’ music teacher, right, provides some very intense instruction to Miles Teller’s jazz drummer. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Whiplash

This film absolutely merits its Best Picture nomination. A deeply disturbing take on artistic ambition, it earned J.K. Simmons a richly deserved Oscar, could’ve done the same for star Miles Teller, and announced Damien Chazelle as a director to watch. But I hate the movie, because I take it too personally. “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job,’” Simmons’ music conservatory teacher says. Instead, he throws things at his students and makes them cry, destroying the dreams of Teller’s drumming prodigy. A handful of high school teachers were responsible for my positive lifelong relationship with music, and so I can’t see the point of a film that explores the opposite. The picture has been described as a horror movie. It’s not, but I wish it were so I could keep it a safe distance away. I suspect the story was an autobiographical exercise for Chazelle. That’s a reason for making the movie, but not an excuse.

Oscar nominations, 5 — Best Picture, Supporting Actor (J.K. Simmons), Adapted Screenplay (Damien Chazelle), Film Editing, Sound Mixing. Oscar wins, 3 — Supporting Actor, Film Editing, Sound Mixing.

Bradley Cooper stars as U.S. Navy SEALs sniper Chris Kyle in “American Sniper,” directed by Clint Eastwood. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

American Sniper

What’s the difference between glorifying an assassin paid by the mob and glorifying one paid by the U.S. military? The fact that in the latter case, the government says it’s OK to kill in a particular situation, at a particular time? That’s not enough of a distinction for me. As a director, Clint Eastwood has rarely made bad movies, and this is a quality film as well, as far as that goes. However, it has since become apparent to Hollywood what wasn’t so obvious when “Sniper” hit theaters in 2014 — Eastwood, late in his filmmaking career, decided to focus on telling stories about conservative folk heroes, and he did so to score political points. There’s clearly an audience for such movies, and that audience benefits from having someone as talented as Eastwood making them. But the Academy has since learned to look the other way. That it hadn’t yet in 2014 is the only reason this title found itself a Best Picture nominee.

Oscar nominations, 6 — Best Picture, Actor (Bradley Cooper), Adapted Screenplay (Jason Hall), Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing. Oscar wins, 1 — Sound Editing.

For further consideration

It took me no more than a few minutes to find three more exceptional 2014 films that are more worthy, in my opinion, of a Best Picture nomination than at least three of those that actually received the honor. But like many of the year’s nominees, these alternatives are decidedly dark in content, tone or both. Was there something in the water in 2014?

Steve Carrell, left, sporting a sizable prosthetic nose, attempts to impart his wrestling wisdom on Channing Tatum’s Olympian in “Foxcatcher.” Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Quick, count down the number of films made about wrestling. Mickey Rourke starred in 2008’s “The Wrestler,” but that was about the garishly, often pathetic world of professional wrestling. I’m talking about films revolving around serious wrestling, as played on college campuses and in the Olympics (at least until it wasn’t). That list may begin and end with “Foxcatcher,” which reminds us that the wealthy are not like the rest of us, and not just because they have more money. Bennett Miller’s unsettling take on an equally unsettling true story about a creepy du Pont scion who started a wrestling team will feel familiar to anyone who saw his “Capote” (2005). And even more than there, it’s the tone of this movie that lingers over the performances. I’m not sure why three recognizable movie stars — Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo — were rendered nearly unrecognizable by facial prosthetics to play real-life but obscure characters whose appearance doesn’t matter, but there is much that is odd about this movie.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an aimless Los Angeleno who finds renewed purpose as an ambulance-chasing videographer in “Nightcrawler.” Photo courtesy of Open Road Films

Jake Gyllenhaal goes all wild-eyed as a big-city weirdo/loser who finds his true calling as a camera-toting ambulance chaser for a Los Angeles TV news show in “Nightcrawler,” the kind of movie the Oscars don’t notice, or at least haven’t much since “Network” (four Oscar wins on nine nominations back in 1977). This film garnered just one nod from the Academy, an Original Screenplay nomination for Dan Gilroy, who also directed (and hasn’t done much since). What about Gyllenhaal, who throughout his long and impressive film career has received just one Oscar nomination (for 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain,” deserved), or Rene Russo, as the sleazily desperate news producer? “Nightcrawler” may go to predictable places, the only places reasonably left to go when a character’s moral compass stops functioning, but then again so did “Network,” ultimately. It’s the increasingly go-for-broke ride this film, and Gyllenhaal, takes us on that matters in the end.

In J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,” Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaacs star as a married couple with grand ambitions but some ethical shortcomings. Photo courtesy of A24

Sidney Lumet would’ve been proud. The late filmmaker had an affection for stories about ethically challenged characters attempting to go legit only to be let down by institutions overrun with corruption. That describes J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year” in a nutshell. Set in the grimy heating oil business in 1981’s equally grimy New York metro area, the film, starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, is the second mentioned in this article that tells a story at least touching on how there’s a strong woman behind every successful man. Strong only begins to describe Chastain’s character here, and watching her one can’t help but wish her run appearing in top-line motion pictures had lasted longer. Candor’s varied filmography doesn’t exactly set him up to be Lumet’s heir in the manner, say, director James Gray’s does, but anytime a filmmaker makes this serious an effort to find intriguing worlds to explore, no matter where that search takes him (or her), we all benefit.

About this project

Some people vow to visit every continent on the planet, others to read everything Shakespeare (allegedly) wrote. I’ve never had much interest in doing either, but I am committed to seeing every motion picture ever nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, back to the very first ones in 1927–28 (specifically, I’m talking about films nominated for Outstanding Picture, Outstanding Production, Outstanding Motion Picture, Best Motion Picture and Best Picture; I’m not sure why the Academy has seen fit to change the name of the award so frequently).

I don’t for one moment presume to operate under the assumption that the Best Picture nominees over time consistently represent the best American filmmakers have had to offer, which is why with each slate of nominees I also briefly consider the consensus critical picks for the best movies of that year(s). Yes, there’s a lot of overlap, but not as much as there should be.

So, why am I taking the time to watch and then write about so many (563 following the 2020 Academy Awards) often sub-par movies? As anyone with just a passing knowledge of the Oscars knows, the voters often get it wrong, which isn’t so much fascinating as it is frustrating. The Oscars, however, have always mattered to the film industry, and matter still (the annual awards telecast, not so much). Each year’s Best Picture nominees help to paint a picture of how Hollywood saw itself at that time, they provide us with glimpses at trends in movie history that could be gone for good.

Most of all, they supply context. Think this year’s slate of nominees was the best ever? The worst? I can virtually guarantee you that’s not the case. No, really. You’d be surprised.

Todd Hill is a former journalist with 30 years of experience, much of it in film criticism, who misses neither journalism nor the film beat.