25 Astonishingly Dumb 21st Century Film Oscar Wins

Beat: Before Midnight, Captain Phillips, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Should've Won: The Wolf of Wall Street.

12 Years a Slave is a brilliant film and not only is it one of the best Best Picture winners of the 21st century, it's among the greatest of all time. But just because a film is a deserving Best Picture winner, that doesn't mean it should win everything.

12 Years a Slave does have an absolutely excellent screenplay, but this is very much a visceral work that is defined by its amazing acting and direction. It's not a writing-based film and it mainly records the events documented in Solomon Northup's book in a faithful, realistic way.

And that's great. This realistic, un-manipulative approach is one of the film's many strengths, but while this is ultimately a very good and very worthy script, it certainly wasn't the best screenplay of the line-up at all.

As screenplays, Before Midnight, Philomena and particularly The Wolf of Wall Street were all more vibrant and complex. Before Midnight benefitted fully from Richard Linklater's masterful writing, the underrated Philomena turned what could've been straight-forward Oscar Bait into an exceptionally moving experience and The Wolf of Wall Street's screenplay was a masterpiece of film writing that really, really deserved to win.

12 Years is a great film, but it didn't deserve this Oscar, especially considering that unbelievable competition.