Since we are a little less than two weeks away from the 90th Academy Awards, I thought I would take a little break from past Best Picture winners and focus on the nominees for this year’s top film: The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, Get Out, The Post, Call Me by Your Name, Lady Bird, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. True to form, I’ve only seen one of these films in the theater at this point (Dunkirk), so we’ll look at that one first—just a few thoughts along with some reasons why each film might/might not win Best Picture. We’ll see how many of these films I can fit in before the big show!

I was so stressed out watching Dunkirk that I almost felt ill in the theater. I think this film’s real strength is its attempt at realism. It is alternately loud, quiet, lonely, and claustrophobic. There is not a lot of dialogue, and by the end of the movie I could only name a couple of the characters. However, Dunkirk isn’t about one protagonist’s search for salvation. It’s about the group of individuals—the desperate masses on the French coast and the brave British citizens on the sea. The viewer of this movie identifies by turns with those needing rescue and those bringing it. I won’t ruin the film by revealing its ending; but historically speaking, the incident chronicled in the film is often referred to as the “Miracle of Dunkirk”—so it’s a good story, very inspiring.

Why It Might Win BP

Typically, World War II films do well come awards time. I remember a few years back Kate Winslet joked that someone had told her that if she wanted to win an Oscar, she should do a WWII movie—which she did (and she won)—so Dunkirk has that going for it (so does Darkest Hour, though…). It is also gloriously filmed and, again, very realistic and very inspiring.

Why It Might Not Win BP

Dunkirk is very quiet dialogue-wise, and it’s difficult to really get to know the characters. There’s so much chaos that the characters often get lost in the mix. BP winners tend to have dynamic, memorable characters and easily quotable dialogue (well, unless we’re talking silent winners like Wings or The Artist). Dunkirk also has a bit of an ambiguous ending, which was a little frustrating to me.