30 Greatest Best Picture Oscar Nominees Of The Last Ten Years

Every year, we get a ton of pedestrian Oscar-Bait biopics that feature a great performance, but are otherwise pretty forgettable. Some of the biggest flaws in such films are: they're technically weak, they play like a greatest hits montage instead of a coherent story, they're very safe, they distort history and they feel unfocussed due to an overly large scope.

Selma, Ava DuVernay's fantastic Martin Luther King Jr. biopic, is like the antithesis of those movies.

The film is led by a masterful performance from David Oyelowo, who mesmerizingly captures one of history's greatest orators, but there is also so much else to love in the film.

It doesn't pull any punches, it's historically faithful, it's very well-made and perhaps best of all, the film doesn't try to condense a long and complex life into a film. Instead, it keeps the scope narrow and focuses on telling a story, which it does brilliantly.

Selma is a heart-rending, splendidly crafted and utterly glorious drama, and it's the film most Oscar-Bait films can only dream of being as good as. It was pretty infuriating that, in a year with quite a few mediocre nominated films, this only got two Oscar nods (the other being Best Original Song, which it deservedly won for 'Glory', its fantastic title track) but at least it got the Best Picture nod it deserved.