We had five films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Life of Pi

It was a stellar Thanksgiving weekend for Oscar contenders with five potential nominees among the new releases. Life of Pi may be the strongest contender in the bunch. Ang Lee is at his best, but that may not be enough. Life of Pi isn’t as accessible as one might think. The story works and has some emotional high points, but apart from the glorious spectacle, there may not be enough substance to make it much of a contender outside of the tech categories. Still, a case can easily be made for a Best Picture nomination as well as an Adapted Screenplay nod, but apart from that, the film seems destined to be a design-only competitor. Ang Lee’s chances at Best Director are rather remote, considering the long list of potential nominees on deck for this year’s Oscars.

Rise of the Guardians

Before its mediocre reviews and below average performance, Rise of the Guardians seemed like a strong contender for a Best Animated Feature nomination and possibly even a win. However, those chances have diminished tremedously in the span of a few days. That doesn’t mean it won’t get a nomination; the Academy has shown limited foresight in recognizing underperforming animated films from big studios. This could be another case of poor reviews not destroying a film’s chances at a nomination. A win, though, is out of the question.

The Central Park Five

The number of “didn’t do it” documentaries this year is rather high and of them all, The Central Park Five may have the best shot at an Oscar nomination. The Academy’s documentary voters aren’t always on target with their picks, but any political documentary or one about social issues tends to fare better than most other times. Along with West of Memphis, this could be a rather interesting year for documentaries.

Hitchcock

The reviews are good, if not exceptional. This is the kind of small film about Hollywood that Hollywood tends to ignore. If it weren’t for the likes of Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Anthony Hopkins, this might have been another Me and Orson Welles. The likely prognosis for Hitchcock is along the lines of last year’s My Week with Marilyn. Hitchcock has gotten better reviews overall, but Marilyn had the benefit of a push by The Weinstein Company. While Fox Searchlight is no slouch when it comes to pushing Oscar contenders, they face an uphill battle to get this film out of only the acting and creative races. Mirren seems to be a strong bet for a Best Actress nomination, but the heavy competition among lead actors is likely to leave Hopkins on the sidelines. The trailers don’t give me faith that his performance is very accurate, but that didn’t stop Philip Seymour Hoffman from trotting off with an undeserved Oscar.

The best notices I’ve seen for the film highlight James D’Arcy’s spot-on portrayal of Anthony Perkins, which might net him an Oscar nomination; however, if the film doesn’t perform well with Oscar voters, he’s the most likely to be ignored because of it. The same goes for Scarlett Johansson who couldn’t even nab the typical Woody Allen Best Supporting Actress nomination that she should have gotten for Match Point.

Rust and Bone

All of the talk for this film centers around the performance of Marion Cotillard. It’s the kind of film most Oscar voters ignore except for its performances and although Cotillard is a past Oscar nominee, it may be tougher for her to get the recognition again. Even though she won the first Oscar for a foreign language performance, Sophia Loren only nabbed one other Oscar nomination in her lifetime. Granted, that nod came only 3 years after her Oscar victory, but she wasn’t granted another prize until her Honorary Award many years later. Cotillard is now five years off her Oscar win for La Vie en Rose and while I still think she’ll sneak into the final five, I also wouldn’t be surprised if she misses out entirely. She’s been on shortlists a couple of times in recent years, starting with Nine (the only performance from that film that should have been honored with a nomination) and continuing through Inception two years ago. While the latter really wasn’t a possibility, the former was and had been expected, but ultimately did not materialize. If buzz couldn’t develop into Oscar nominations before, it’s unlikely to do so again. Sony Pictures Classics is responsible for her Oscar campaign, but they don’t seem to have a lot of luck in recent years.