With the Oscars less than three weeks away, many of this year’s nominees are available on DVD with others either announced for release or soon to be announced.

In decades past, the public, critics and Oscar more or less agreed on each year’s best films. That pretty much changed with the success of blockbusters such Jaws and Star Wars in the mid-1970s. Both films were nominated for Best Picture and won handily in the technical categories, but neither really had a shot at winning the big one. Jaws lost to the popular hospital drama, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Star Wars to Woody Allen’s comedy, Annie Hall.

In the years since when well-regarded smaller films were up against blockbusters, the smaller film almost always won, a clear indication that the Academy was more likely to side with critics than general audiences. There were exceptions, of course, such as Titanic which won over the critically acclaimed L.A. Confidential and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King which won over a field of lackluster nominees. With both the backstory was as important to the film’s win as what was on the screen.

Titanic was a behemoth, a blockbuster of unprecedented proportions that even before its Oscar victory had become the biggest moneymaking film in history. It was seen at the time as a film that was good for the industry. Return of the King was about to set at least three Oscar records, become the first third film in a trilogy to win; the first sequel to win without its original having also won a la The Godfather and the first fantasy film to win. Oscar voters always like to do something that sets a new record. It makes them feel special, part of history in a way.

This year they have a chance to set a new record by making The Artist the first silent film to win a Best Picture Oscar since the Academy’s first year. If it wins, it will also be the first Best Picture winner produced by a non-English speaking country. It is a French-Belgian co-production.

The Artist is not yet on DVD and has not yet been announced for home video release, but if you are unable to get to a theatre playing the film, you can approach its wonder by watching any number of silent films that are available from The Garbo Silents to Wings. If you want to see something with the same story line, I suggest watching both Singin’ in the Rain and A Star Is Born.

By the same token, the feel of four other films nominated for Best Picture, which are also as yet unavailable on DVD, can be approximated by watching other films which are.

Although structured like the children’s classic, Lassie Come Home, War Horse combines the drama found in many World War I films including Paths of Glory, as well as a couple of World War II films, A Midnight Clear and Gallant Bess.

On the surface, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about the aftermath of 9/11, but it’s a really just a modern reworking of The Wizard of Oz with the wonderful Max von Sydow’s silent character substituting for Oz’s talking scarecrow, lion and tin man.

The Descendants may be all modern and glib, but its evocation of modern Hawaii harkens back to such 1960s melodramas as Diamond Head.

The nostalgic children’s movie, Hugo is being released to home video at the end of the month, but if you can’t wait, you can check out star Asa Butterfield in the equally charming Nanny McPhee or if you really want to discover his range, opt instead for the heartbreaking Holocaust drama,The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Of the four Best Picture nominees already available on DVD, the most popular has to be The Help, which some prognosticators are suggesting might be a surprise Best Picture winner in the tradition of Driving Miss Daisy, which was a surprise Best Picture winner, which like The Help was without benefit of its director also having been nominated, a usual no-no in the Oscar race.

More likely, though, is that that both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer will win distaff acting honors for their performances in the film. Should they win, it will be the first time two African-American performers have won for the same film and only the second time in Oscar history that an African-American will have won Best Actress. Davis is already only the second African-American actress to have been nominated twice. The first, Whoopi Goldberg, won on her second nomination for Ghost.

There is another precedent for a Davis win that I haven’t seen discussed by anyone and that’s Patricia Neal in Hud, who like Davis, was playing household help and is gone for a large chunk of the film and whom many at the time thought should more appropriately be placed in the Supporting Actress category.

The Help is to me a good if unremarkable film, but certainly one that should be seen. The three remaining films already released to home video depend on your tolerance for films by and about Brad Pitt, Woody Allen and Terrence Malick.

Those films aren’t obviously about Brad Pitt, Woody Allen and Terrence Malick, but they are. How else do you explain their popularity with some and their utter disdain by others?

The backstory behind Moneyball is that producer/star Brad Pitt tried for years to get his baseball movie going, but honestly, does Brad Pitt look like someone who suffered for his art? The film’s supporters, of whom there are many, insist that this is a baseball movie for people who don’t like baseball. Not on your life. It is very much a film for baseball lovers, which is fine, but why pretend otherwise? It is, however, just as much a film for people who love numbers. The numbers in the many, many behind-the-scenes discussions fly by so fast and furiously that you have to be a mathematician to keep up. If you can ignore that and just sit back and watch the Oakland A’s most thrilling season ever, you’ll have a good time. Otherwise, you may not.

The best parts of Midnight in Paris are the wondrous looks back at the 1920s and briefly the 1890s as the Woody Allen character embodied by Owen Wilson traverses those times. The worst part of the film are the scenes set in the present day in which Wilson romances a third-rate Diane Keaton-type character played by Rachel McAdams while her obnoxious parents look on. Ah, Woody, you can’t go back to the 1970s any more than your characters can go back to the 1920s or those characters back to the 1890s.

Terrence Malick was one of the seminal new directors of the 1970s whose absence made the heart grow fonder until he returned with The Thin Red Line in 1998. Gutted to near incoherence, the film was nevertheless popular enough to garner significant awards buzz culminating in seven Oscar nominations, none of which it won.

Malick’s latest film, The Tree of Life is beautiful to look at, so beautiful in fact, that it should be shown non-stop in every modern art gallery in the world either silently or with just its musical track. Dramatically, however, it is a snoozer. It could have been fixed. The dialogue by the film’s principal characters could have been made more audible and the scenes involving Sean Penn as the grown-up version of Brad Pitt’s and Jessica Chastain’s oldest child could have been cut to a cameo, but as it stands it is another major disappointment from another major talent, Oscar nomination for Best Director or not.

Newly released on DVD, Drive, shamefully nominated only for Sound Editing, is better than any of the Best Picture nominees already released on home video. It is a modern film noir with stunning cinematography and an excellent music score. The violence in the film is brutal but stylistic and in keeping with the narrative. I really can’t see anyone not liking this film, yet despite its numerous precursor awards recognition the Academy turned its back on it. They didn’t even nominate Albert Brooks for his multi-award winning portrayal of an urbane, witty cold-blooded killer seemingly leaving the way clear for Christopher Plummer to pick up his umpteenth award this year for The Beginners.

The Beginners is a diffident comedy about a graphic artist played by Ewan McGregr and his budding romance with flakey Melanie Laurent while learning that his elderly father (Plummer) is gay and dying of cancer. Plummer is good, but don’t be surprised if his old friend and occasional co-star Max von Sydow pulls off a surprise win for Supporting Actor for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

No one thought John Mills had much of a chance of winning a Best Supporting Actor for his mostly silent role in Ryan’s Daughter either.

The Plummer/von Sydow career parallels are actually quite fascinating. Both rose to prominence in the U.S. in 1958, Plummer with Stage Struck, von Sydow with The Seventh Seal. Both became well-known to general audiences in 1965, Plummer with The Sound of Music, von Sydow with The Greatest Story Ever Told. One can argue that Plummer was in the bigger hit, but von Sydow had the bigger part (Jesus). Von sydow even got to match Plummer’s coup of starring opposite Julie Andrews by starring opposite her in the following year’s Hawaii. Through the years both had had starring roles in films, von Sydow far more often than Plummer, and both have had major supporting roles in films, sometimes the same film. Believe me, this is a much closer race than it seems.

This week’s new DVD releases include current Best Costume Design Oscar nominee Anonymous and TV’s award-winning Downton Abbey: Season 2.