17. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Any movie involving a figure with as much socio-political clout as Nelson Mandela is bound to attract some Oscar attention. This explains why a movie that was met with as much indifference as Invictus, a film that simply chronicled Mandela's relatively trivial involvement with the South African 1996 World Cup Team, still managed to procure a Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nomination for Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, respectively. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom on the other hand promises to be much more substantive in terms of the events of Mandela's life that it covers. This theoretically gives the film a hefty amount of awards potential, but it is lacking in one key area where Invictus shined: star power. Idris Elba stars as Mandela, and while he is a rising star, he isn't a household name yet (a strong box office performance from Pacific Rim this summer could go a long way). Meanwhile, the film's director, Justin Chadwick, has mostly worked in television. That's a lot of unproven talent, but if they can bring it all together, there's a lot of upside potential to this film's awards prospects.