Wednesday Oscar Retrospective: The Real Best Pictures of 2005

Welcome back to a weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Wednesday Oscar Retrospective. The Real Best Pictures is the seventh in a series of projects looking back at the past eight years of the Oscars, dating back to the first ceremony I watched and closely followed.

For this feature, imagine that an Oscar nomination for Best Picture was cumulative rather than based on votes in just that category. That means taking into account how well a film performed in other categories, and how many Oscars it eventually took home. Like the other series before it, this one is highly speculative, but the point is just to have fun, so chime in with your thoughts in the comments!

And the nominees were… Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich

The keepers, no questions: This was one of the only times in recent history (before the Best Picture field was expanded to more than five nominees) that all five Best Picture nominees were also nominated for Best Director. Additionally, all five of these nominees were recognized with nominations for their screenplays, which doesn’t suggest that any of them would have been snubbed.

The question marks: Neither “Good Night and Good Luck” nor “Munich” won any of their categories, which indicates that they weren’t as popular as the other three nominees.

The losers: None this year.

The new inclusions: The one category that wasn’t as enthusiastic about most of the Best Picture nominees was Best Film Editing, in which only “Crash,” the winner, and “Munich” were nominated. I don’t think “Cinderella Man” was ever a serious contender for Best Picture, but both “Walk the Line” and “The Constant Gardener” may have come closer.

The new nominees: Same as the old nominees in this case!

Come back next week for a look at the Real Best Pictures of 2004!