What If The Critics Picked The Oscars?

[philosoraptor42]

Okay, I don't know about anyone else but I was peeved with the Oscar nomination choices. I was one of many pointing out that Drive had high critical praise (as well as popularity amongst ordinary viewers, judging from IMDB) and yet seemed to be completely snubbed. Like so many, I was wondering what other great choices were being undermined by a group of rich old white men who are too out of touch with the industry to be taken seriously.

However, when Rotten Tomatoes used their scores to compare previous Oscar winners (just highlighting that the general caliber of Oscar winners has not been high e.g. Forrest Gump, Driving Miss Daisy, Crash) it occurred to me that there was a way of checking. Rotten Tomatoes gives the average number of critics who enjoyed a movie. Now while there may be a number of critics who go for the lowest common denominator and others might be bats**t insane, the combination of all of them must surely come up with something rather more reasonable...

I've come up with the following lists by taking the Rotten Tomatoes "Top 100" for the year, removing all movies which didn't get at least 70 reviews (after all, it's understandable that the Oscars should be awarding films for their success as well as for their skill) and I'm then separating foreign films and animated films for the rest. (And disregarding documentaries altogether. When documentaries are good they do very VERY well on Rotten Tomatoes, with the top film in the best the year list quite often being a documentary, but I'm not going to worry about the documentaries here.)

So, before I start separating the choices into their various categories, here's the top 5 films with at least 70 reviews that aren't documentaries in the Rotten Tomatoes top 100 list for 2011:

99%     A Separation (2011)     (116 - reviews)
97%     The Artist (2011)     (193 - reviews)
96%     Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)     (275 - reviews)
96%     The Muppets (2011)     (190 - reviews)
96%     Pariah (2011)     (91 - reviews)

Now that's already quite different from the Oscars eh? (I know there are plenty of Potter fans who must be pleased to see where this is heading.)

But yeah, sadly A Separation would be shoved into the "foreign language" category so it seems that critics are just as responsible for "The Artist" being made the top film of the year. Still, I've heard good things about Pariah and it would have been nice to see a list of foreign language nominees where I recognised more than one of the titles.

Here's the five top foreign language films:

Winner - A Separation!
Other Nominees - Pariah, 13 Assassins, Of Gods And Men, Incendies


Well, I don't know about everyone else, but I'm wondering where the hell "Troll Hunter" is in all this, eh? Anyone else thinking that? Other films I'd say were missing are "Point Blank" (French title: "A Bout Portant") and I think there's enough foreign language for "Sarah's Key" to count in this list too.

Here's the top animated movies:

Winner - Arthur Christmas!
Other Nominees: Winnie The Pooh, Rango (yes, in that order)

And that's all the animated movies there are to choose from. For all the people claiming that Spielberg was snubbed, the critics didn't like Tintin that much either... My own favourite, "Kung Fu Panda 2" doesn't make it into the list either (though for the record, it scored much higher than Tintin on RT).

So finally.... what we've all been waiting for... BEST PICTURE!

Winner - The Artist!
Nominees: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Muppets, The Guard, Moneyball

We best get the nominees up to the full ten, right?

Nominees: Win Win, Coriolanus, Weekend, Drive, Hugo

Well there you go, both big winners (The Artist and Hugo) still made it into the nominees with "The Artist" still taking the spot of Best Picture winner. Moneyball is the only other entry this list has in common with the actual Oscars Best Picture nominees. Midnight In Paris would have been the next entry, so it was only just taken out of the running. After that the Oscars Best Picture nominees in the RT top 100 rank in the following order: The Descendants, Tree of Life.

The Oscars Best Picture nominees which don't even make it into the RT top 100 list are: "War Horse", "The Help" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

So yeah, sorry fabfunk. I know "Tree Of Life" was your favourite....

So what do you guys reckon? Are the critics more reliable than the Oscars? Do you think the Oscars are better? Or are both ways of judging the best films of the year similarly flawed?

Previous Year's Results

Still don't just judge it by this years choices! Check out what RT produces for other years. The further back I went, the odder the results became....

2010
99%     Toy Story 3 (2010)     253
98%     How to Train Your Dragon (2010)     169
97%     Animal Kingdom (2010)     143
96%     The Social Network (2010)     276
96%     True Grit (2010)     249

Best Foreign Language Film: Lebanon
Nominees: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Potiche, Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Nominees (3): How to Train Your Dragon, Tangled, The Illusionist (L'illusionniste)

Best Picture: Animal Kingdom
Nominees: The Social Network, True Grit, The King's Speech, The Town
Winter's Bone, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, Another Year, The Fighter

2009
98%     Up (2009)     274
97%     A Prophet (Un prophete) (2009)     144
95%     Star Trek (2009)     292
95%     Mother (Madeo) (2009)     109
94%     An Education (2009)     177

Best Foreign Language Film: A Prophet (Un prophete)
Nominees: Mother (Madeo), Vincere, The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos), The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band)

Best Animated Film: Up
Nominees: Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Secret of Kells, Coraline, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Best Picture: Star Trek
Nominees: An Education, The Damned United, Drag Me to Hell, Up in the Air,
District 9, Crazy Heart, Zombieland, The Messenger, Fish Tank

2008
98%     The Wrestler (2008)     215
98%     Let the Right One In (2008)     166
97%     The Hurt Locker (2008)     210
97%     Entre les Murs (The Class) (2008)     145
96%     WALL-E (2008)     233

Best Foreign Language Film: Let the Right One In
Nominees: Entre les Murs (The Class), Revanche, Goodbye Solo, Sugar

Best Animated Film: WALL-E
Nominees (3): Ponyo, Bolt, Kung Fu Panda

Best Picture: The Wrestler
Nominees: The Hurt Locker, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Milk
Slumdog Millionaire,  In the Loop, Happy-Go-Lucky, Frost/Nixon, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

2007
98%     The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret) (2007)     114
97%     Once (2007)     154
97%     Persepolis (2007)     147
96%     Ratatouille (2007)     217
95%     No Country for Old Men (2007)     226

(I'm ignoring "Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection" because it appears to be a DVD release)

Best Foreign Language Film: The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)
Nominees: 4 Luni, 3 Saptamâni si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), Offside, Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters), Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)

Best Animated Film: Persepolis
Nominees (1): Ratatouille,

Best Picture: Once
Nominees: No Country for Old Men, The Bourne Ultimatum, Juno, Gone Baby Gone,
Enchanted, Ballast, Hairspray, There Will Be Blood, Knocked Up

2006
97%     The Queen (2006)     184
95%     Pan's Labyrinth (2006)     196
94%     Casino Royale (2006)     216
94%     Away from Her (2006)     143
93%     The Departed (2006)     228

Best Foreign Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Nominees: Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), Ne le Dis à Personne (Tell No One), Volver, The Host (Gwoemul)

Best Animated Film: Paprika
Nominees (0):

Best Picture: The Queen
Nominees: Casino Royale, Away from Her, The Departed, Children of Men,
The Squid and the Whale, This Is England, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93