The candidates for Best Movie for the 80th Annual Oscars are:

1. Atonement with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.
2. No Country for Old Men with Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson.
3. There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day-Lewis.
4. Michael Clayton with George Clooney.
5. Juno with Ellen Page.

I’ve seen #1 and 3. Daniel Day-Lewis was magnificent. Atonement had terrible editing and was a really patchy story with a confusing timeline. But aside from these serious shortcomings, it was an excellent period piece. I have plans to see #2 an 5, but for the life of me, no matter how many times I see a trailer for Michael Clayton, it doesn’t interest me in the slightest. And I’m a huge George Clooney fan. Oh well.

The following movies have been nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year. You might notice that three of five of the nominated movies are based on novels. Some or all of the movies were selected by the American Film Institute and won or were nominated for Golden Globes.

IMDB has the rest of the Academy Award nominations. The Academy Awards are not exempt from the WGA writers strike, so hopefully some independent deal will be resolved if the strike itself is not.

What’s your pick for best movie? Any other movies that should have been on the nominations list?

Atonement
Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan.
Written by Christopher Hampton, based on a novel by Ian McEwan.
Directed by Joe Wright.

Juno
Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman.
Written by Diablo Cody.
Directed by Jason Reitman.

Michael Clayton
George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O’Keefe, Tom Wilkinson.
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy.

No Country for Old Men
Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root.
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy.

There Will Be Blood
Daniel Day-Lewis
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on a novel by Upton Sinclair.