The Academy Awards are an odd tradition. Every year, voters from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (becoming one of these voters is itself a somewhat mystified bureaucratic nightmare) nominate and award feature films in a number of categories.

Even ignoring the flaws in the process -- such as potential mis-categorization (see co-leads Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin breezing their way to Oscar wins by competing as "supporting actors") -- the prestige and preeminence of the Oscars gives way to a false air of objectivity regarding its honorees. It creates the illusion that winning films are inarguably the best, rather than the beneficiaries of the aggregation of the subjective opinions of a relatively small and unavoidably biased stable of Hollywood elites.

This is all to say, while the Academy Awards are a lot of fun, they are simply unable to honor every film that deserves an award. Below,...