Oscar Predictions

Best Foreign Film

• Don't Tell, Italy
• Joyeux Noël, France
• Paradise Now, Palestine
• Sophie Scholl - The Final Days, Germany
• Tsotsi, South Africa

A category dear to hearts, and one that perennially gets it wrong. Because of bizarre rules and an arcane selection process, great films are commonly not even eligble for the award. Of the nominated films, Paradise Now and Tsotsi are the most deserving, but from all the movies made in the world last year, our favorite is still Head-On , Fatih Akin's raw and passionate love story. Few films jump off the screen and grab the viewer like this one, and anybody who has seen it can't wait to see more of its first-time star Sibel Kekilli.

Best Film

• Brokeback Mountain
• Capote
• Crash
• Good Night, and Good Luck.
• Munich

The safe money is on Brokeback Mountain, a thoroughly Hollywood picture with grand emotions and eye-pleasing cinematography in which the main characters happen to be gay. While we respect Good Night, and Good Luck. and Capote, the most deserving of the nominees is Munich, a stunningly entertaining movie that keeps on saying different things the longer you think about it. But the American film that has kept on haunting us is The New World. In its leaner, trimmed-down version, Terence Malick's retelling of Pocahontas's life is a miracle of fluid storytelling, lyrical, fresh, beautiful, profound, and emotionally resonant.

Best Director

• Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee
• Capote, Bennett Miller
• Crash, Paul Haggis
• Good Night, and Good Luck., George Clooney
• Munich , Steven Spielberg

Too much ink and bandwidth have already been lavished on the contenders in this category, so we'll simply refer you to Matt Zoller Seitz, who has been tracing the critical reception of Terence Malick's extraordinary The New World on his blog.

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