Oscars 2017: 20 Predicted Best Film Nominees Ranked Worst To Best

You can always rely on fascinating true stories to pick up some Oscar attention, and A United Kingdom is based on one that has remarkably avoided adaptation to date. And you at least partly have to be thankful of that, as it allowed for the excellent central performance of David Oyelowo.

It was always inevitably going to be labelled with that dreaded Oscar bait title, but to do so is to reduce it and to ignore the specifics of what makes it so good. It is a hugely important political history film, of course, but the heart of it is a love story facing seemingly unsurmountable odds. Any great film about love finding a way - particularly around prejudice - deserves to be seen, but one that also manages to be this god ought to be cherished.

It could have been a sickly sweet, typical Oscar movie, vacuous but well intentioned, but the sentimentality is mercifully kept on a leash and the central performances are allowed to blossom. It could have pushed harder, and it could have delivered slightly more authentic emotion, but it's a solid drama that should get some attention from the Academy.