The past year took viewers on a journey with a ship-wrecked young Indian man stranded with a tiger on a life raft, and it gave a dramatic look into the last few months of President Lincoln’s time in office. Movies give an audience a chance to escape to new worlds, and the truly great ones stay long after the credits have rolled.
Hollywood’s biggest night focuses on the Academy Awards, where the year’s most watched and talked about movies battle it out for the honor of being named best motion picture.
Nine movies have been nominated for best motion picture in this year’s Academy Awards. Among the nine nominees are three different historical films, “Lincoln,” “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty;” the tragic musical “Les Misérables;” the French-language drama “Amour;” two novel-based films, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Life of Pi;” the witty romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” and the historical pre-Civil War film “Django Unchained.”
Marissa Padilla, senior, said, “I really like Quentin Tarantino, so I went and saw “Django Unchained. The special effects and plot really kept me entertained.”
“Lincoln” is largely favored to win, with over twelve Oscar nominations, more than any other movie this year. “Life of Pi” is a close second with eleven nominations.
“Les Misérables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” each have eight nominations. They also both already won a Golden Globe for best motion picture in their respective genre.
“Argo” claimed a surprising victory over “Lincoln” during Golden Globes in the drama category for best motion picture. Ben Affleck, director of “Argo,” did not receive an Oscar nomination in the category of best director.
Only three films in Oscar history have won best motion picture without their director having a best director nomination, the most recent film to do so was “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1989.
In contrast, only two directors have ever won best director without their films being nominated for best motion picture.
The red carpet will be rolled out for this star-studded event on Feb. 24, airing on ABC.