16. Inside Llewyn Davis
The Coen Brothers, who began their careers as independent makers of genre films, have become quite the favorites with the Academy as of late. Three of their last four films have received Best Picture nominations (the one exception being the dark comedy, Burn After Reading), so the trend would say Inside Llewyn Davis' chances at landing a Best Picture nomination are pretty good. Despite the statistics though, something tells me the film will have a tough battle making the cut. It's not that I think the film will be bad, it is one of my most hotly anticipated films of 2013, but it seems like the sort of smaller personal film that the Academy rarely deems praise worthy. A Serious Man was this type of film and managed to secure a Best Picture nomination, but it did so by galvanizing enough support from the art-house crowd. While Inside Llewyn Davis does focus on the early 1960's New York Folk scene, a topic which could very well interest the Hipster members of the Academy, it is likely to be a much more straight forward film than the cerebral A Serious Man. The mystery around the film will soon be unraveled though, because Inside Llewyn Davis is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in about a month's time, at which point we will have a much better grasp of the film's status in the awards season.