Oscars: Every Best Picture Nominee Of The 2010s - Ranked Worst To Best

42. The Descendants

Since he broke out of his box on ER and became Hollywood royalty, George Clooney has done some great work, but he's arguably not done anything better than Alexander Payne's darkly funny and simultaneously devastating The Descendants.

He plays a man lost at sea faced with the awful revelation that his wife, who is in a coma after a boating accident, was having an affair. At the same time, he's torn apart by his position at the head of his family dealing with a major conflict over inheritance, while he struggles to come to terms with his wife's infidelity and her impending death. How he and Payne manage to squeeze any humour out of that situation while also pulling hard on the old tear-jerk handles is just incredible.

SG

41. True Grit

For a long while, the Western was considered as dead as pirate movies, but then someone started talking about Revisionist Westerns and all of a sudden there was life in the Old West yet. True Grit isn't even the best of that new breed but thanks to the combination of the Coens' story-telling, a great existing story and an incredibly gifted cast, it's a bloody great watch.

This was at the true peak of Jeff Bridges' dramatic mumbling phase, so he takes some understanding, but he's the perfect stand-in for John Wayne (Cancelled, 2019) and there's so much dusty cool to the whole thing that it's enough to make you want to go out and invest in some chaps and spurs.

The acting is all exemplary, the story rich and tense and it's the perfect antidote to anyone saying "they don't make them like they used to."

SG

40. Call Me By Your Name

Honestly, there's a lot about Call Me By Your Name that doesn't really work. Chunks of the dialogue sounds designed to make a point rather than to be what actual humans would say. The film seems more concerned with showing Elio being intimate with his girlfriend than Oliver. And Elio doesn't eat the peach.

That said, there's so much to love about Call Me By Your Name. Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet are exceptional, and their chemistry makes you buy into their relationship when the dialogue doesn't quite cut it. The cinematography and period-authentic Italian setting in general is lush as well, offering the perfect backdrop for this kind of long summer of self-discovery. Sufjan Stevens' soundtrack is perfect as well, and is part of the reason why that gut-punch of an ending lingers for so long after.

It might not come together for everyone as a whole movie, but there'll always be something in this essential love story for everyone to latch onto.

JB

39. Zero Dark Thirty

Coming so soon after the events it depicts in its conclusion - Osama Bin Laden was killed in May 2011, this arrived a year-and-a-half later - there was always a danger Zero Dark Thirty might not age well. And while it's attracted a lot of controversy for everything from its depiction of torture to its use of classified information, partisanship, and so on, it remains an incredibly directed, brilliantly acted thriller.

It may lack the emotional power of The Hurt Locker, but Kathryn Bigelow moves into another gear here in terms of making a tense, taut movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. It pulls no punches in showing the dark side to the hunt for bin Laden, and that's especially true in Jessica Chastain's lead performance. Chastain is always brilliant to be fair, but there's a ferocity here that's delivered while still being the emotional throughline for the film that makes this one of her best.

JH