50 Contenders: Predicting 2011's Best Pictures

The year is young, and we all know that the best picture contenders of this upcoming year probably haven't come out yet. But with a 10 nominee field there's some room for a variety of guesses. So here's my ranking of the 50 films that could snag a spot in Oscar's top 10.

We'll find out when the 84th Oscar nominations are announced, but even before then when some of these films rise, while other's fall.

If I had to Predict 10 Nominees...
1. War Horse (dir. Steven Spielberg)
2. The Tree of Life (dir. dir. Terrence Malick)
3. The Descendants (dir. Alexander Payne)
4. We Bought A Zoo (dir. dir. Cameron Crowe)
5. A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg)
6. J. Edgar (dir. Clint Eastwood)
7. Hugo Cabaret (dir. dir. Martin Scorsese)
8. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (dir. David Fincher)
9. Moneyball (dir. Bennett Miller)
10. Young Adult (dir. Jason Reitman)

The Rest...
11. The Adventures of Tin-Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn (dir. Steven Spielberg)
12.Super 8 (dir. J.J. Abrams)
13. Ides of March (dir. George Clooney)
14. On The Road (dir. Walter Salles)
15. Contagion (dir. dir. Steven Soderbergh)
16. The Iron Lady (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)
17. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (dir. Tomas Alfredson)
18. Rampart (dir. Oren Moverman)
19. My Week With Marilyn (dir. Simon Curtis)
20. Take Shelter (dir. Jeff Nichols)
21. Anonymous (dir. Roland Emmerich)
22. The Artist (dir. Michael Hazanavicius)
23. Carnage (dir. Roman Polanski)
24. The Skin I Live In (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
25. The Help (dir. Tate Taylor)
26. Albert Nobbs (dir. Rodrigo García)
27. Larry Crowne (dir. Tom Hanks)
28. The Rum Diary (dir. Bruce Robinson)
29. Eye of the Storm (dir. Mike Capozzi)
30. Cars 2 (dir. John Lasseter, Brad Lewis)
31. Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen)
32. Take This Waltz (dir. Sarah Polley)
33. Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
34. Winnie the Pooh (dir. Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall)
35. One Day (dir. Lone Scherfig)
36. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (dir. Stephen Daldry)
37. We Need to Talk About Kevin (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
38. Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski)
39. Twixt Now and Sunrise (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
40. Meek's Cutoff (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
41. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows, Part 2 (dir. David Yates)
42. The Whistleblower (dir. Larysa Kondracki)
43. Melancholia (dir. Lars Von Trier)
44. Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir. Sean Durkin)
45. Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga)
46. Coriolanus (dir. Ralph Fiennes)
47. Tyrannosaur (dir. Paddy Considine)
48. Shame (dir. Steve McQueen)
49. This Must Be The Place (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
50. Like Crazy (dir. Drake Doremus)