Reviewing the yearly Oscar nominations is probably my most consistent blog series, having analysed at least the Best Picture nominations for the last three years. (2007, 2008, 2009).

This year the Academy has changed the quantity of nominations available in the Best Picture category, increasing from five to ten places. The movies up for Best Picture in the 82nd Academy Awards are;

I have seen eight of the ten Best Picture nominees this year. The Blind Side hasn’t been released in the UK yet, and An Education had an extremely limited run and I missed it.

The list features movies by directors and writers who are well established and renowned within the industry, such as Quentin Tarantino, The Coen Brothers and James Cameron. It also features relatively unknown “newcomers”, such as Neill Blomkamp, Lone Scherfig and Lee Daniels for District 9, An Education and Precious respectively.

Quentin Tarantino is nominated for Best Director for his historically inaccurate war movie Inglourious Basterds, as well as Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Pulp Fiction also received nominations for these categories in 1994, when it won Best Original Screenplay.

The Joel and Ethan Coen are nominated for A Serious Man, a black comedy with a such a quirky tone, something which is quintessentially and synonymous with the Coen Brothers. I would have to say this movie is the weakest of the eight that I’ve seen and I would have probably replaced it with the wonderful (500) Days of Summer or the low-budget but brilliantly acted and directed Moon by British director Duncan Jones.

I am pleased for District 9 because summer sci-fi movies rarely get much attention come awards season. The documentary style filmmaking with a bumbling but lovably lead character in an intimate story driven sci-fi movie has made Neill Blomkamp, the director and writer, a household name over night, with fans of the movie anticipating his next project already.

Up in the Air director Jason Reitman has had three very well received movies in succession, including Thank You for Smoking and the Oscar winning comedy Juno. However, Up in the Air is probably his best so far. A real world, somber drama about work, decisions, goals and relationships. A movie about life. Up in the Air would get my vote for runner up in the Best Picture category.

For the last three years Pixar has had the most universally loved movies of the year, with Ratatouille in 2007 and one of my favourite movies, WALL·E, in 2008. Both of these movies did win Best Animated Feature, but many believe they should have also been nominated for the most coveted award of the season. However, only this year, with Up, has it received a Best Picture nomination - partly due to the new ten nomination slots? I don’t think Up is as strong as WALL·E and won’t win the Best Picture award, but it should definitely win Best Animated Feature, making it the fifth Pixar movie to do so.

Avatar or The Hurt Locker

Many believe this years Best Picture award is between two movies; Avatar and The Hurt Locker. And I agree. If you’ve read my “2009 in Movies: The Best of…” post, you’ll know who I think should win — The Hurt Locker.

Kathryn Bigelow directed my favourite movie of 2009, the seriously tense war movie The Hurt Locker. It has received universal acclaim and has already been gaining plenty of awards. The movie won Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound and Best Film at the BAFTA Film Awards. She also won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Feature Film Award at the 62nd Annual Awards, making her the first woman to do so. The universal acclaim, the six BAFTA wins and DGA award statistically makes The Hurt Locker the favourite to pick up the Best Picture award this year.

However, Avatar has been a ridiculous success. Twelve years after the box-office smashing and Oscar white-wash that was the phenomenon Titanic, James Cameron out performs the massive box-office success with his other world 3D sci-fi epic Avatar. The movie was surrounded with a lot of hype before anyone had even seen the finished version, and then even more so after the first reviews started arriving. It’s difficult for a movie to live up to those kind of expectations, but, for me, it did. The first thirty minutes I was adjusting to the 3D, the characters and the situation, however, the next two hours were absolutely mesmerising. I have seen the movie twice in the cinema and would like to see it once more before it’s theatrical run comes to an end.

Although Avatar may very well revolutionise how many directors in Hollywood make movies from now on, I felt that overall it didn’t quite match the gritty storytelling of The Hurt Locker. Avatar won’t go home empty handed, it will surely win Best Achievement in Visual Effects and no doubt a couple of others.