12 Awesome 2014 Movies That Deserve Best Picture (But Won't Get Nominated)

Oscar season is in full swing, yet unlike in most years, the race is still wide open, with no clear front-runner leading the pack, even though Boyhood, Birdman and The Imitation Game are clearly the most buzzed-about Best Picture candidates sure to get nominated. With so many films still sight-unseen such as Unbroken, Big Eyes and American Sniper, there are evidently a lot of questions left surrounding the Best Picture race. That said, it's clear that, as ever, it's a crowded field and, along with the 9 or 10 films that end up landing a nod, there will be a bunch of worthy films that just won't be able to slot into place, either because they're not typically Oscar-baiting enough, they're not adorned with Oscar-worthy performances to boot, or they've pretty much been forgotten by the short memories of the voters comprising AMPAS. These 12 movies, a mixture of mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and art-house flicks that flew way under the radar, all deserve Best Picture recognition, and in a number of cases, it wouldn't be a travesty to see them take the gong home outright. With films like, say, District 9 (which received a surprise nomination in 2010), the nomination is often seen as the win, and in the case of these 12 films, that would pretty much be the case.