14. Twelve Years a Slave
With just two feature films under his belt, Hunger and Shame, director Steve McQueen has definitely built a solid block of fans among critics and the indie types. It seems then very possible they he may be ready to burst onto the scene big time with his third feature film effort, Twelve Years a Slave. The film, which chronicles the true story of a 19th Century African-American man who was kidnapped from the free states of the North into the slavery of the Deep South, maybe too tough for some Academy members to take though. We've seen last year with Django Unchained that the Academy is willing to embrace movies that tackle the tricky subject of slavery, but Twelve Years a Slave is purportedly a horse of a different color. You're not going to find any homages to Spaghetti Westerns here, or any use of songs from the likes of Jim Croce, but we are likely to hear adjectives such as "bleak" and "stark" in reviews of the film and depending on to what degree these descriptions apply, this may be an issue for the film's awards prospects. The uncompromising nature of McQueen's last film, Shame, along with its taboo subject matter, likely derailed Michael Fassbender's campaign for his first Oscar nomination. With an amazing ensemble cast that includes Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch (again), Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Scoot McNairy, Paul Dano, Michael K. Williams (from TV's The Wire and Boardwalk Empire), and last year's Beast of the Southern Wild co-stars, Quvenzhane Wallis and Dwight Henry, this film will be hard for the Academy to ignore. Then again, the Academy has never been known for sticking up for difficult films.