Closing in on the end of the year, it sure looks like the Best Picture field will be dominated by smaller, art-house movies with limited commercial appeal. The only big-budget, $100-million dollar grossers likely to be nominated are Gone Girl, Interstellar, and maybe the musical Into the Woods.

Depending on who you believe, the smart money is on these nominations:

Boyhood
The Imitation Game
Birdman
Foxcatcher
The Theory Of Everything
Selma
A Most Violent Year
Interstellar
Gone Girl

A bunch of these haven't even opened yet. The various critics awards will start being handed out in early December.

I have not gone to a single movie this year. The closest I came was having a chance to watch last year's oscar winners on a Virgin America flight. The price of having small kids.

Blah year for Oscar obviously. Guess I would root for Interstellar but I doubt it would win (too long, too much pseudo science).
Doubt Gone Girl would win either.

Only have seen Boyhood and the above mentioned movies. Doubt I will see those other ones.

Gone Girl struck early by winning best picture at something called the Hollywood Film Awards, handed out last Friday.

I'd like to see Chef sneak is as a dark horse in the race.

not just the movie, but favreau with an acting nod too.

I just noticed that there could be the possibility of Patti Smith getting a nomination for Best Original Song.........."Mercy Is" from the film Noah.

Some entertainment sites think it will be one of the finalists
http://www.awardscircuit.com/oscar-pred ... inal-song/

One of the last places I could ever imagine Patti in would be singing a song at an Oscars show..............but that would definitely get me to watch it for the first time in years.

The only thing I can remember about movies this year is waiting all of last year to see "Inside Llewyn Davis" and finally seeing it in January. Other than that...as far as I know, it's been all superhero flicks and "Kung Fu Panda"-type schlock. I did see "Anchorman 2" on DVD last month, and I own the "Frozen" soundtrack (but never saw the movie).

The only ones I remember are all of the super hero block busters we get treated to every year (big ones comIng in 2015). The little movies fall to the side these days except that one day the Oscar is telecast.

The New York Film Critics Circle handed announced their awards for 2014:

Best Film
Boyhood

Best Actor
Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant; Two Days, One Night

Best Director
Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Best Animated Film
The Lego Movie

Best Screenplay
The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best First Film
The Babadook

The sad thing is The Grand Budapest Hotel, easily one of the best films of the year, will get forgotten by Oscar because it came out last March. It has made $171M so it's actually in the blockbuster category.

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards nominations announced today. These have been the best barometer for predicting the Oscars for the past few years. Acting only, no awards for screenwriting or direction.

Motion Picture Nominees

Outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture (a.k.a. Best Picture)

"Birdman"
"Boyhood"
"The Grand Budapest Hotel"
"The Imitation Game"
"The Theory of Everything"

Outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role

Steve Carell, "Foxcatcher"
Benedict Cumberbatch, "The Imitation Game"
Jake Gyllenhaal,"Nightcrawler"
Michael Keaton, "Birdman"
Eddie Redmayne, "The Theory of Everything"

Outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role

Jennifer Aniston, "Cake"
Felicity Jones, "The Theory of Everything"
Julianne Moore, "Still Alice"
Rosamund Pike, "Gone Girl"
Reese Witherspoon, "Wild"

Outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role

Robert Duvall, "The Judge"
Ethan Hawke, "Boyhood"
Edward Norton, "Birdman"
Mark Ruffalo, "Foxcatcher"
J.K. Simmons, "Whiplash"

Outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role

Patricia Arquette, "Boyhood"
Keira Knightley, "The Imitation Game"
Emma Stone, "Birdman"
Meryl Streep, "Into the Woods"
Naomi Watts, "St. Vincent"

The Golden Globes go to Boyhood (best drama) and Grand Budapest Hotel (comedy), so those are now the frontrunners. Right now, I'd say Boyhood is the odds-on pick for Best Picture.

Here's my favorite. So glad it got recognized. Just love this movie.

Interesting that Unbroken was nowhere to be found tonight despite its large epic scale and Angeline Jolie pedigree.
Also that Selma which is usually right up their alley doesn't win anything but the musical score/song considering how popular protesting is these days. And it has Oprah.

it might be very, very good, i have not seen it, but i have read about it, seen clips, and looked at the packaging for the DVD, and 'boyhood" just looks horribly boring. and its 2 1/2 hours long.

Boyhood was my favorite movie of 2014. Saw it twice in the theaters. I found it engrossing, not at all boring, and the time flew by.

If it wins the Oscar for Best Picture, it'll be the first time I've agreed with the Academy since Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Boyhood is definetly worth seeing especially on DVD though it's better to see on the big screen (where you don't have distractions).

The Oscar nominations will be held in a few days on January 15th.

Usually I like "different" movies. I caught "Boyhood" because of the good reviews & the 12-year-filming gimmick. I don't get the good reviews & to me the gimmick back-fired. I mainly like a movie with a good story and either likeable and/or interesting characters. This movie was void of both (one character had potential but the movie failed there, too) and the more the movie went on, the more I couldn't care less what happened to the characters..All the praise for Ellar Coltrane rang hollow for me. He was okay as a child but any acting talent seemed to fade the older he got. But I guess the director was stuck with him. A friend who also saw the movie on DVD over the weekend said the sum of the movie was best described by the old Wendy's "Where;s the beef?" slogan. Indeed!

The movie is carried by the acting talents of Patricia Arquette (who wil probably win an Oscar) and Ethan Hawke. Again I think it's worth a rental to see if you like it.

The five nominations for the Directors Guild Award, announced today:

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Clint Eastwood, American Sniper
Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Morton Tyldum, The Imitation Game

The winner of this award nearly always goes on to win the Oscar for Best Director.