After reading through the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award yesterday, I couldn’t help but sit there and wonder what the point of extending the category was in the first place (with one exception). The whole idea of extending the list to ten, as I understood it, was to broaden the Best Picture field, and to move away slightly from the usual Oscar-worthy fare that tends to infest such lists.

Here, in case you missed them, are the ten nominees:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Prior to the nominees being announced, I’d reckon that at least eight of those were easily guessable. The Blind Side isn’t a massive surprise, given the massive amount of money it’s made and the generally positive response to the film. An Education is well reflected in other categories, and it’s certainly pleasing to see it on the list. And Up, to be fair, while only the second animated movie to ever be nominated for the top prize, would surely have been in with a shout had the list been whittled down to five.

There’s, for me, only one outright wildcard in the list, and that’s District 9, which looks to me as the only movie on there that’s anywhere close to being outside the Academy’s comfort zone. Even then, you suspect that the $100m+ US box office returns certainly helped it out. Pretty much every other project has worthiness, cash or just being generally very good on its side, and more to the point, tends to fit the Oscar template well.

But then District 9, even appreciating that this site called it its favourite film of the year last year, is, arguably, not the best science fiction movie of 2009 anyway. Certainly the continual overlooking of Moon is a massive disappointment. Even if you thought it not worthy of a Best Picture nod, and I’d have personally placed it or Star Trek over District 9 (but, to be fair, JJ Abrams could have made Citizen Kane in Star Trek form and sheer snobbery would still have seen it left off the list), then there’s the question as to what Sam Rockwell and Clint Mansell actually have to do to get their work recognised. Do they need to go round to the AMPAS HQ and serve drinks for a few days?

What’s really disappointing is that 2009 saw some excellent, slightly left of centre or just plain strong films that were aching to be the beneficiaries of the Academy’s longer Best Picture list. Okay, maybe we didn’t entirely get more of the same, but we certainly got enough to make us wonder whether even if the list was increased to 20, some of the following projects wouldn’t have got a look in. For here are ten films that the Academy snubbed for the big prize:

Crazy Heart
Moon
Star Trek
(500) Days Of Summer
Coraline
In The Loop (but then the Academy does comedy even less than sci-fi these days)
The Lovely Bones
Where The Wild Things Are
Fantastic Mr Fox
Ponyo

I should say: I don’t love every film I’ve listed above, but for each, I’ve heard convincing arguments from those who do as to why they warranted some degree of recognition. I didn’t include the much-mooted The Hangover as the only reason it would have ridden into the list would have been the popularity ticket (In The Loop was a much better comedy, I’d argue), nor Invictus, which some were surprised was overlooked. But it simply would have been nice for the Academy to have seized the initiative and dug a bit deeper before ballots were cast.

Come the big night next month, of course, you can almost wipe some of the entries to the Best Picture list off the sweep form right now. The odds on Up, District 9 and The Blind Side to win are so long, that those associated with the films can fairly safely get trolleyed long before the final envelope is opened. Instead, it’s Avatar and The Hurt Locker that are leading the chase, with Up In The Air the attractive slightly outside bet.

Avatar, I suspect, will prevail, given that it’s delivered Hollywood its favourite cocktail of critical acclaim and an awful lot of money. Is it the best picture of the year? It doesn’t really matter, to be fair. It is the Oscars, after all. And as the names behind the films on our list of Oscar snubs could probably testify, and Cameron's Titanic also showed, it’s not always the one who’s best who takes home the bacon…