Hooksexup’s Oscar Best Picture Trope Checklist

Twenty years of Best Picture winners, in convenient chart form!

The Academy Awards are approaching rapidly, and though this year’s ceremonies have been marred by Ratnergate, the Awards themselves probably aren’t going to break any new ground in terms of who wins what and why. In fact, if you take a macro view of the Best Picture winners of the past twenty years, you’ll start to see some familiar themes, which is why we’ve compiled this handy chart of Best Picture Tropes.

Now, if we look at the Best Picture Nominees for this year (The Help, The Tree of Life, War Horse, The Artist, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and The Descendants), The Artist and The Help are the odds-on favorites, because they each fulfill three tropes (and because they could also be two different Brooklyn indie bands). While both films fulfill the Period/Historical Drama category, The Help's Grandiose Statement on Race could give it the edge over The Artist's A-Singin' and A-Dancin' (though it features considerably more of the latter than the former). But we're giving the edge to The Artist because it's A Good Cry, which edges out The Help's Punishing Run-Time for the third trope. 

Projected 2012 Best Picture Winner: The Artist