--- title: Oscars 2014 Predictions: Who Will Win Best Picture? 12 Years a Slave description: It's not the most clear-cut race in Oscar history, but Slave should still come out on top canonical: https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-28T19:29:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T06:31:38.910Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Oscars 2014 Predictions: Who Will Win Best Picture? 12 Years a Slave og:description: It's not the most clear-cut race in Oscar history, but Slave should still come out on top og:url: https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef3e6d2be01a173d/6986835713c79f1740190cd1/12-years1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Oscars 2014 Predictions: Who Will Win Best Picture? 12 Years a Slave twitter:description: It's not the most clear-cut race in Oscar history, but Slave should still come out on top twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef3e6d2be01a173d/6986835713c79f1740190cd1/12-years1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why '12 Years a Slave' Will Win Best Picture ## Video: Oscar Dresses That Made History [Watch (HLS stream): Oscar Dresses That Made History](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oIlf7uNi.m3u8) (11:11)  _Published 2014-02-28. From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion_ by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Feb 28, 2014 7:29 PM CUT  Jaap Buitendijk—Fox Searchlight by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Feb 28, 2014 7:29 PM CUT **NOMINEES** _American Hustle_ _Captain Phillips_ _Dallas Buyers Club_ _Gravity_ _Her_ _Philomena_ **_12 Years a Slave_** _The Wolf of Wall Street_ In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea for the Motion Picture Academy to expand the number of Best Picture nominees from five to as many as 10\. Why should the top award be less selective than, say, Best Director? The reason, back in 2009, was that the previous year’s most popular movie, _The Dark Knight_, didn’t get a Best Picture nomination. The Academy knew that more people watched the Oscar ceremony when blockbuster hits were in the final mix. The show achieved its most viewers ever in 1998, when _Titanic_, the first movie to gross $1 billion worldwide, swept the awards; and the highest recent viewership was in 2004, when the second billion-dollar movie, _The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King_, was the big winner. Sure enough, in 2010, _Avatar_, the current “all-time” box-office champ, was a major contender (though not a Best Picture winner), and the ratings spiked up again. Two things: First, that’s a lousy reason to expand the category. And second, the Academy still is averse to nominate the most popular films for Best Picture. The most-seen movies of 2013 were _The Hunger Games: Catching Fire_, _Iron Man Three_ and _Frozen_. Katniss’ opus was completely stiffed, the Tony Stark sequel earned only a Visual Effects nomination, and _Frozen_, which should have been nominated for Best Picture (as the animated features _Beauty and the Beast_, _Up_ and _Toy Story 3_ were previously), will have to settle for prizes given out early in the Oscar ceremony. Of this year’s nine Best Picture nominees, only four — _Gravity_, _American Hustle_, _The Wolf of Wall Street_ and _Captain Phillips_ — earned more than $50 million at the domestic box office; and only _Gravity_ was a popular smash. The other five are, basically, art films. That’s fine for prestige, but it defeats the purpose of adding more Best Picture slots to attract mainstream moviegoers to the TV show. If Best Picture had been at its traditional number, the five candidates would likely have been _American Hustle_, _Dallas Buyers Club_, _Gravity_, _12 Years a Slave_ and _The Wolf of Wall Street_; they received the most nominations. As in the Director category, we can quickly reduce the serious contenders to three, and then two. David O. Russell’s _American Hustle_, a popular and critical success, had the chance to score a rare Picture win for a comedy-drama — as Woody Allen’s _Annie Hall_ did in 1978, the year in which the _Hustle_ story is set. But as much as the Academy surely enjoyed it, the movie may seem not substantial enough to take the top prize. So bye bye; we miss _American Hustle_. **(READ:** [**Why** **_American Hustle_** **will win Best Original Screenplay**](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/27/oscars-2014-american-hustle-best-original-screenplay/ "undefined")**)** _Gravity_ should win Best Picture — says the man who called it the finest movie of 2013, and also included _Hustle_ and _Slave_, and for that matter _Her_, on his 10-best list — and it will earn the most Oscars. I’d say at least six: Alfonso Cuarón for Director, and for Cinematography, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects (plus maybe Original Score). Piling up wins in the “little” categories is nice, but it’s like a Presidential candidate taking a lot of states with few electoral votes; he won’t get into the White House unless he wins the big states. For _Gravity_, the “big state” is Best Picture, and that won’t go to the (my) best picture — because, alas, the fates and Oscar history conspire against it. I’ve written about this before, but, in short: no science fiction movie has ever won the top Oscar — not _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (which wasn’t even nominated the year that the musical _Oliver!_ won), not _E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial_ (when _Gandhi_ won) and not _Avatar_ (lost to _The Hurt Locker_). The aged Academy members typically reward realistic fact-based dramas, set in the recent or distant past, that employ lots of actors and have dozens of craftspeople on the set. _Gravity_ meets none of those criteria: it’s a fantasy, set in the future, with a visible cast of two and an effects crew of nerds in studios strewn around the world. Even those wonders may not impress the skeptical Academy. As [one anonymous voter complained](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-voter-reveals-brutally-honest-682957 "undefined") to _The Hollywood Reporter’_s Scott Feinberg: “I’ve seen better things at planetariums.” **(READ: The long version of** [**Why** **_Gravity_** **won’t win Best Picture**](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/20/gravitas-and-gravity-why-the-science-fiction-epic-wont-win-best-picture-at-the-oscars/ "undefined")**)** What movie fulfills the Academy’s Best Picture requirements? Steve McQueen’s _12 Years a Slave_. The consensus choice of film critics’ year-end prizes, and a Golden Globe winner for Best Drama, it also took the British Film Award (BAFTA) for best film and tied with _Gravity_ at the Producers Guild. (The Screen Actors Guild went with the actor-friendly _American Hustle_.) This is a serious, scalding portrait of slavery, the great American scar, and it edifies even those viewers whom its graphic, sadistic violence makes uncomfortable. The movie’s brutality, and its cool, distanced view of an American atrocity, could prove a handicap. An Oscar truism: in the competition between a film the members admire and a movie they love, they’ll go with love. In the last three years they’ve chosen _The King’s Speech_ over _The Social Network_, _The Artist_ over _Moneyball_ and _Argo_ over _Life of Pi_. **(READ:** [**Why Lupita Nyong’o May Win Best Supporting Actress for** **_12 Years a Slave_**](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/26/oscars-2014-best-supporting-actress-lupita-nyongo/ "undefined")**)** McQueen’s movie is not lovable; that factor makes this final category a fascinating conundrum. But given the Academy’s presumed reluctance to reward a film about scam artists (_Hustle_) or a planetarium production (_Gravity_), I have to stick with _12 Years a Slave_. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/"},"headline":"Why '12 Years a Slave' Will Win Best Picture","datePublished":"2014-02-28T19:29:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:31:38.910Z","description":"It's not the most clear-cut race in Oscar history, but Slave should still come out on top","url":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/","keywords":["awards","12 Years a Slave","movies","Oscars","Academy Awards"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef3e6d2be01a173d/6986835713c79f1740190cd1/12-years1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef3e6d2be01a173d/6986835713c79f1740190cd1/12-years1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE","caption":"TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE","creditText":"Jaap Buitendijk—Fox Searchlight","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/awards/","name":"awards"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/","name":"Why '12 Years a Slave' Will Win Best Picture"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Oscar Dresses That Made History","description":"From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Keira Knightly's Vera Wang pick, a look at revolutionary Oscar fashion","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oIlf7uNi/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-02-28T18:58:20.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oIlf7uNi.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/","duration":"PT11M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/10842/oscars-2014-predictions-best-picture-12-years-a-slave/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```