Tomorrow truly marks the beginning of Oscar season. While Sunday is a good jump start and yesterday was terrific in some regards, few events really pique the interests of Oscar-philes than the National Board of Review. Aside from the Oscars, the NBR is the oldest film award-giving body in existence, starting their awards in 1929. Since then, they have bounced back and forth between excellence and irrelevance. The lastest period of excellence began in 2002 when four of the five films nominated for Best Picture came from the NBR list of the ten best films of the year. 2003, 2007 and 2008 were identical in selecting four while 2004, 2005 & 2006 each saw all five pics appear on the list.

So what of the ones that failed to make the NBR list? Let’s take a look:

2008: The Reader
2007: There Will Be Blood
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

So, what does this say about who doesn’t make it? Almost nothing. The only pattern we can make out here is that none of the Lord of the Rings films made the list, not even 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring.

There Will Be Blood is a bit of an odd exclusion as both previous, Oscar-courting Paul Thomas Anderson films (Boogie Nights and Magnolia) made the list. The only possibility is that the members of the NBR never saw the film, which could explain its exclusion.

The same could be said for The Reader as it also released late in the year, but the quality of the film may have also kept it out of the running as many critics felt the film was rather lackluster.

So, four films from this list are pretty solidly in the hunt for the Oscars, perhaps five. But, it’s fair to say that if any contender does not make this list, that film’s chances are not entirely dead, but it would be grievously wounded.