--- title: Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: What the Reviews Said description: From 'American Sniper' to 'Whiplash' and everything in between canonical: https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-15T16:29:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:36:31.332Z article:section: History og:title: Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: What the Reviews Said og:description: From 'American Sniper' to 'Whiplash' and everything in between og:url: https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4483e9b82af11821/698779598e0601a156459a83/h_51210827.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4385 og:image:height: 2467 og:image:alt: The Grand Budapest Hotel - 64th Berlin Film Festival og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: What the Reviews Said twitter:description: From 'American Sniper' to 'Whiplash' and everything in between twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4483e9b82af11821/698779598e0601a156459a83/h_51210827.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: Read the Original Reviews > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 15, 2015 4:29 PM UTC  A still from the film The Grand Budapest Hotel A still from the film The Grand Budapest Hotel Martin Scali—20th Century Fox/BE/EPA  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 15, 2015 4:29 PM UTC This year’s [Oscars nominations](http://time.com/3668006/oscars-2015-nominations/) were announced Thursday morning and, despite a few snubs and surprises, the Best Picture nominees were mostly the usual batch of well-received prestige pics—though they also received reviews that weren’t always 100% positive. TIME’s critic Richard Corliss reviewed each of the nominees as they were released, and here’s what he had to say: **_American Sniper_**_,_ reviewed Dec. 31, 2014: “It’s a gritty, confident portrait of a man whose life may have been somewhat messier than this Hollywood version.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3649364/american-sniper-movie-review/) **_Birdman_**_,_ reviewed Oct. 27, 2014: “This isn’t truly a one-take movie, like Alexander Sokurov’s enthralling Russian Ark–here, scenes lasting 10 minutes or more are edited together with invisible transitions–but Birdman is still a unique technical accomplishment. Shot in 30 days, with the actors’ and the camera’s movements calibrated to the inch and the millisecond so that the action flows smoothly, the picture has the jagged energy of a sustained guerrilla raid choreographed by Bob Fosse. It’s a precision ballet whose most impressive effect is that it plays out like real theatrical life.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3512681/michael-keaton-angry-birdman/) **_Boyhood_**_,_ reviewed July 10, 2014: “A home movie of a fictional home life, an epic assembled from vignettes, _Boyhood_ shimmers with unforced reality. It shows how an ordinary life can be reflected in an extraordinary movie.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/2970210/boyhood-movie-review/) **_The Grand Budapest Hotel_**_,_ reviewed Mar. 10, 2014: “A dizzyingly complex machine whose workings are a delight to behold, the movie has a wry smile for frailties, a watchful eye for tyranny and a heart that — under the circumstances of this dark, fanciful tale — must be called heroic.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/17897/wes-andersons-the-grand-budapest-hotel-make-that-the-great/) **_The Imitation Game_**_,_ reviewed Dec. 1, 2014: “Alan Turing in The Imitation Game may be \[Benedict Cumberbatch’s\] oddest, fullest, most Cumberbatchian character yet. The Cambridge genius who fathered the modern computer, known as the Turing machine–and who presciently asked, “What if only a machine could defeat another machine?”–seems part machine himself.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3596961/review-the-imitation-game/) **_Selma_**_,_ reviewed in Jan. 19, 2015, issue of TIME: “This is a film set not on great lawns but mostly in back rooms, where a forceful whisper can have more effect than a pulpit homily. Oyelowo gives a warm, acute performance and lends King a presence that makes everyone from his wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) to LBJ feel the power of his argument, the singe of his soul.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3651009/review-selma-1965-2014/) **_The Theory of Everything_**_,_ reviewed Nov. 17, 2014: “For a movie about the author of A Brief History of Time, this is a doggedly chronological retelling of Stephen and Jane’s 30-year marriage. Theory finds its saving nuances in the story of a vigorous young man transformed by disease into his wife’s invalid child.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3560479/the-theory-of-everything-a-grief-history-of-love/) **_Whiplash_**_,_ reviewed Oct. 9, 2014: “A hit at Sundance and the Toronto Film Festival, where it was nicknamed [_Full Metal Drum Kit_](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,964819,00.html), Damien Chazelle’s _Whiplash_ adds welcome flavor to the fall movie season, like Raisinettes sprinkled on a tub of popcorn. Directing with a cool, steady hand that renounces shaky-cam the way Fletcher would denounce rock ‘n roll, and getting strong performances from his two leads, Chazelle provides a potent metaphor for artistic ambition as both a religion and an addiction.” _Read the full review_ [_here_](http://time.com/3484871/whiplash-movie-review/) [See the full list of 2015 Oscars nominees](http://time.com/3668006/oscars-2015-nominations/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/"},"headline":"Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: Read the Original Reviews","datePublished":"2015-01-15T16:29:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:36:31.332Z","description":"From 'American Sniper' to 'Whiplash' and everything in between","url":"https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/","keywords":["movies","awards","Reviews","Oscars"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4483e9b82af11821/698779598e0601a156459a83/h_51210827.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4483e9b82af11821/698779598e0601a156459a83/h_51210827.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Grand Budapest Hotel - 64th Berlin Film Festival","caption":"The Grand Budapest Hotel - 64th Berlin Film Festival","creditText":"Martin Scali—20th Century Fox/BE/EPA","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/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3669127/oscars-2015-best-picture-nominees-reviews/","name":"Oscars 2015 Best Picture Nominees: Read the Original Reviews"}}]}] ```