baseless speculation

The Oscar Nominations: What’ll Get the Fifth-Best Picture Slot?

By , a features writer for New York Magazine.  He was previously the magazine’s culture editor and one of the original editors of Vulture.

The Academy Award nominations won’t be officially announced until Thursday morning, but, for as long as most Oscar watchers can remember, 2008’s Best Picture race has already been pretty much decided: Slumdog Millionaire will win, easily defeating other surefire nominees The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Milk — but what’s the other film that Slumdog will steamroll on its way to the podium? Despite late-growing consensus for The Dark Knight (following nods from the DGA, PGA, and the WGA), could another movie still score that elusive fifth slot? Sure, we guess! After the jump, we survey the likely contenders.

The Dark Knight: For as much as we’d love to see Rachel Getting Married or The Wrestler get the fifth slot, we won’t deny that Dark Knight would probably be the smarter pick — if the Academy wants to lift the Oscar ceremony out of the ratings basement this year, recognizing 2008’s biggest blockbuster seems like a pretty obvious way to do it. Important nods from the Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild bode well, but will voters really feel comfortable nominating a superhero movie? Or will they decide that Heath Ledger’s inevitable win for Best Supporting Actor (on top of the movie’s billion-dollar box office) is reward enough? Odds: 2 to 1.