Awards season has started to get excitingly unpredictable as there seems to be no clear front-runner any longer. Zero Dark Thirty was once being heavily predicted to win the Best Picture award in February, but the film seems to have lost steam in the precursor awards.
In the past few years, there has always been a film that has won the majority of the awards leading to Oscars, leading most to call it the front-runner of the race. Last year The Artist dominated the precursors en route to winning the prestigious Oscar for best Picture. The year before, The Social Network won most precursors even though it did not end up winning the Oscar. In 2009, The Hurt Locker was the front-runner while in preceding years Slumdog Millionaire, and No Country for Old Men were the top contestants for the top prize. With the exception of Social Network all those other films won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The last time, there was no front-runner was in 2006 when a number of films split the critics awards.
The race had been leaning heavily in Zero Dark Thirty's favor up until this past week when the film began to lose a plethora of critics awards. It did pick up wins for Best film from the African American and Chicago critics but other major awards circles ignored the film completely. The London Film Critics, a group that always gives a better look at how the BAFTA's will vote, did not give the film a best picture nod. The British voters are a major contingent of the Academy Award voters and the lack of interest in the film from the LFC indicates that the film could see a major hit come voting.
Silver Linings Playbook came back into the race this week winning two precursor awards. After winning the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film was widely recognized as the favorite to win the Oscar. However, it failed to garner much buzz in early critics circles and has seen its profile as a top contender drop until now. The film won numerous awards at Detroit and the Satellite awards including best director and best actress. While Playbook still looks like a Dark horse, the TIFF win and the Satellite win are major players in the competition. Its awards tallies now stand at two best film awards.
The Master, another film long thought dead in the race, has been resurrected with three wins in the past week. The Paul Thomas Anderson film won at San Francisco, Kansas and Toronto. At Kansas City the film went home with three awards, while at San Francisco it won two. Toronto was the most enthusiastic and awarded the film with four prizes. The Master also received 7 nominations for the London Film Critics helping its chances for the BAFTA's in January. The film has already won three best film awards.
Argo picked up another three awards and continued to make its case for the best picture award. Argo won two awards from the St. Louis Film Critics and also picked up three from the Southeastern Film Critics. More recently, it won Best film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay at the Florida Film Critics Awards. The film was nominated for 4 London Film Critics awards and its overall best film tally stands at four. It is the film with the second most Best Picture wins.
While these four films have won major awards there are still many major contenders. Lincoln has been nominated for the SAG, Critic's Choice and Golden Globes and has won numerous awards. The film is on the top of many pundits' list and like The King's Speech can surprise at the last moment. As it stands, Lincoln has only won one precursor award (Dallas Forthworth Film Critics). Life of Pi, Les Miserables, Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Django Unchained are still major contenders and with no clear front runner any one of these films can quickly emerge with a few victories in the precursors.
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