Oscars 2015: Ranking The Best Picture Nominees From Worst To Best

3. Whiplash

With its musically dominated plot and wholly indie credentials, Whiplash risked being this year's Inside Llewyn Davis - a great movie about a topic only a small portion of the audience would care about (then folk, now jazz drumming) that would slip by contention at the major awards for no other reason than the universe hates great movies. So what a pleasant surprise that it managed to get five nominations, including a very deserving Best Picture nod. It's especially commendable when, earlier in the year, it looked like Whiplash's only hope at awards glory was J.K. Simmons' sure fire winning performance as conductor-cum-bully Terrence Fletcher. However, just like in the movie itself, that performance emerged as only one incredible part of Damien Chazelle's all-round adrenaline-pumping thriller. Like Llewyn Davis, the many musical scenes aren't padding exclusively for the benefit those into the subject (see Foxcatcher's wrestling), but heart-pounding action sequences that consistently build the characters and their world where genius and talent is so commonplace that to succeed requires total sacrifice. There's so much to praise, but special props should got to Miles Teller, who holds his own against a top-of-his-game Simmons, especially in a taught final scene, which provides a sick alternative punchline to the "How do you get to Carnegie Hall" joke.