Movies about extreme survival go back to the dawn of Hollywood. Survival comes in many forms. It could be on a deserted island or a deserted planet. It may be in a jail or as a prisoner of war. There are many ways characters have to survive dangerous and arduous situations, and these movies will leave you white knuckling it until they either escape, get rescued, or perish trying to do either.

The Martian

Matt Damon plays an astronaut exploring Mars when he is accidentally left for dead on the red planet and is forced to find a way to live with no food and limited resources. The Martian has been praised for the science in (most) of the movie, but it's the survival aspect of the movie that really draws fans in.

The Bridge On The River Kwai

How dedicated are you to your country, and what will you endure to keep your pride? The legendary The Bridge On The River Kwai explores just how far a person will go in pursuit of both of those. In extreme conditions, the British prisoners of war go through the worst of everything, extreme heat, fatigue, disease, and torture, cannot keep them from that stiff upper lip attitude of the era.

28 Days Later

Plenty of movies show the extreme and terrifying nature of surviving a dystopian future or a zombie apocalypse. Few do it better than Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. The zombies are the things of nightmares, but somehow the characters keep living in whatever way they are forced to.

12 Years A Slave

There may be no better example of surviving under the most extreme conditions than the era of chattel slavery in 19th-century America. 12 Years A Slave is one of the hardest movies you'll ever watch, and it's also one of the most important movies of the last half century on the subject. Survival doesn't even begin to describe just how hard it was.

Society Of The Snow

The Oscar-nominated Spanish film Society of the Snow tells the now-infamous story of the Uruguayan rugby team who survive a plane crash in the Andes only to be forced into committing cannibalism to survive in the barren wilderness. It's as terrifying as it is inspiring.

Apollo 13

There are only three people in the history of the world who can really understand what it's like to survive a disaster in space. Tragically, most astronauts who have, didn't live to tell the tale. The three astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission did survive, and the 1995 movie starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon brings the story to the big screen in amazing fashion.

127 Hours

The true story of Aron Ralston, played by James Franco in 127 Hours, is one of the most visceral ever shown in a movie. It's a story that basically can understand just how harrowing it is. We can all imagine ourselves in a similar situation and wonder just how far we would go to save ourselves. Ralston goes further than most even dream possible, but he made it, and set an example of human endurance few have ever matched.

Schindler's List

Schindler's List is the kind of movie you are amazed by, but might not want to ever watch again. Of course, history is known to everyone who has been to school in the last 80 years, but that doesn't make the movie about the horrors of the Holocaust any easier to take in. It's an amazing movie and one of the scariest stories of survival by an entire group of people ever told. And it's told in honor of the six million who didn't make it.

The Revenant

Being left for dead in the wilderness, getting attacked by hostile people, and surviving a bear mauling certainly qualify a survival story for this list. Those things all happen in The Revenant, the movie that finally won Leonardo DiCaprio the Oscar he's been so deserving of.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk is not just about the survival of the British soldiers on the beaches of the titular town at the outbreak of World War Two, it's about the survival of the whole nation. Had the army not been evacuated, the entire war would likely have gone very differently, not to mention the history of the United Kingdom. Christopher Nolan's masterpiece tells a number of stories of survival, and every one is important.

Cast Away

You knew this one had to be here. It's a story as old as time: a man surviving on a tropical island. It's been in myths and stories for centuries, and there is no better example in modern times than Cast Away. From making fire to building a raft to escape on, this one has it all.

The Shawshank Redemption

Being wrongly accused and convicted of a crime you are not guilty of is a nightmare that many people share. One of the best movies of the '90s, The Shawshank Redemption lets everyone see just how scary and emotional something like that could be. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are amazing in this enduring movie that people will still be watching and relating to for many more generations.

Alien

"In space, no one can hear you scream," is the tagline for one of the most celebrated sci-fi horror movies of all time. Ridley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien is a survivor on her own level throughout the franchise, and it all started with her surviving this movie.

First Blood

Sometimes, survival comes at the expense of the people trying to hunt you, like the cops in First Blood who make the mistake of forcing Green Beret John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) into the woods. Rambo knows how to survive, the cops never stand a chance.

The Pianist

Surviving the Holocaust has rarely been shown on screen as emotionally as it is in The Pianist. Adrien Brody's Oscar-winning performance is as powerful an example of survival as has ever been put on film.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games may not seem like it belongs on the list, but it certainly does. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) has to endure a lot to survive the games, and she thrives when she has to. The movie may be fiction, but the reality doesn't seem impossible, as scary as that is.

A Quiet Place

Surviving is hard enough. Surviving in total silence? Wow, that is truly another level. In A Quiet Place, we learn just how terrifying the silence can be, or really how scary it is when that silence is disturbed. A budding franchise shows just how viscerally people feel the quiet.

Rescue Dawn

Prisoner of war movies are pretty common in Hollywood history. Each brings their own nightmares of survival. Some of the most terrifying come from the Vietnam War, even when the camp is not in Vietnam, as is the case in Rescue Dawn. Christian Bale stars in this movie based on the true story of a pilot shot down over Laos and the horrors he must endure as a POW.

The Road

Cormac McCarthy's excellent (and bleak) book The Road was turned into an even bleaker movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee and set in a dystopian future. Human endurance is incredible, as even in the worst kind of situation, some survive. Never underestimate the love a father has for his son.

Unbroken

Angelina Jolie directed one of the most incredible stories of POW survival ever in Unbroken. The true story, about Louis Zamperini surviving multiple ordeals, including a plane crash, 47 days in a raft in the middle of the ocean, and two years in a POW camp. At the camp, he was tortured and used as forced labor. How he survived is nothing less than astonishing. The movie has mixed reviews, but the story is incredible, no matter how it's told.

Lone Survivor

Peter Berg directed Lone Survivor, based on the incredible true story of Marcus Luttrell, who was, as the name of the movie implies, the only survivor in a group of Navy SEALs on a mission in Afghanistan. Mark Wahlberg plays Luttrell, and Taylor Kitsch plays one of the members of his team who was killed. Though the account has been disputed, the movie still serves as a shining example of survival.

Into The Wild

Sometimes, it's human hubris that puts us in a position where we have to survive. Such is the case in the book and the movie Into the Wild. Alexander Supertramp, aka Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch), made his own choices that led him to the desperate situation that eventually, tragically killed him as he tried (and failed) to survive in the Alaskan wilderness.

Gravity

Surviving space is hard enough when you have other people with you. On your own, it's downright impossible. That's the situation Sandra Bullock's character finds herself in in Gravity. It's science fiction, but it's so believable. It's not like Alien or even The Martian, it's much closer to home.

The Diary Of Anne Frank

Maybe the most famous example of survival during the Holocaust is the story of Anne Frank and her family in German-occupied Holland during World War II. The incredible diary the young girl kept has inspired countless people and put a real face on the victims of the Third Reich. The book was turned into a movie nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.

Deliverance

It was supposed to be a relaxing and exciting canoe trip that instead turned into a harrowing story of survival after a group of friends, led by Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, are terrorized by a nasty group of locals who don't want them on the river. The incredibly popular movie is part action/adventure, part horror movie as the campers deal with some really scary actions from those out to kill them.

Alive

A few decades before the Society Of The Snow brought the story of the Uruguayan Rugby Team, who survived a plane crash and weeks on top of a mountain, to the big screen, Ethan Hawke and company told the story in Alive. It's not as visceral as the newer movie, but it's still an incredible telling of the story.

The Great Escape

To be fair, The Great Escape is as much a "boys adventure" movie as it is a story of survival. Still, there is no question that there are some sad, harrowing moments for the POWs in a German camp during World War II. People do die, and there are real stakes (at times) in this classic movie from old Hollywood with an all-star cast.

Children Of Men

Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 movie Children of Men is, in a world, incredible. It may be overshadowed by his more recent work, like Gravity and Roma, but it's my favorite movie of his. It's also a unique look at survival, not just by the main characters in the movie, but humankind as a whole.

The Is The End

We had to include one comedy on this list. There are a few examples of funny takes on survival, but none are quite as ridiculous as This is the End. The all-star cast of Hollywood stars playing ridiculous versions of themselves is both funny and actually pretty scary at times.

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, a television movie based on the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It depicts the true story of one of the deadliest seasons of climbing the world's highest mountain. Not everyone survives, but those who do, like Beck Weathers (Richard Jenkins), endured some of the most harrowing weather conditions ever seen on Earth.

The Swiss Family Robinson

One of the most famous stories of "surviving" has to be The Swiss Family Robinson, as told by Disney in a couple of different versions, including one in 1960. It's hardly harrowing, and it's pretty luxurious and therefore unrealistic, but it sure does seem like fun! Survival doesn't always have to be a nightmare in movies, apparently.

Man Friday

It's sort of surprising that the story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe hasn't been made into more movies. Man Friday is probably the best adaptation of the enduring novel, so it'll stand in for all of them.

There are just some movies, that despite how great they are, are just impossible to watch more than once. Either the subject is too heavy, like a holocaust film, or the violence is too much, like some horror movies, or any other number of reasons. This is a list of 32 of those amazing films that you just can't watch a second time. 

Schindler's List (1993)

The Steven Spielberg classic Schindler's List is one of the most difficult movies to watch ever. It's absolutely brilliant in the way it depicts the horrors and personal costs of The Holocaust, and while it's completely gripping and an amazing story, it is really hard to watch, emotionally. I've actually seen it twice after swearing to never watch it a second time, but I don't think I have it in me to watch a third time. 

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

The Rwandan genocide of the '90s is still very raw in that part of Africa. The movie Hotel Rwanda is like other movies about people trying to save people from such events, like Schindler's List, is both heartwarming and completely heartbreaking. You really feel for everyone viscerally when you watch, and because of that, it's really hard to watch a second time. 

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile is a very different story than we are used to coming from the mind of Stephen King. It's not scary, in a traditional sense, but boy is it emotionally fatiguing. Michael Clarke Duncan's performance is what makes this heartbreaking movie about a prisoner on death row. The raw emotion he plays the role with is spectacular but absolutely draining.   

The Zone Of Interest (2023)

The 2024 Oscar winner for Best Sound, The Zone Of Interest, is one of the most worthy recipients of that award in history. The way that director Jonathan Glazer told the entire menacing part of the story with sound is simply incredible. It is also not for the faint of heart. Not seeing the horrors of the Holocaust depicted on screen makes it all the more powerful because it's all in your mind, making it much more real somehow. 

Uncut Gems (2013)

There is little harder than watching one man's decent in desperation and despair, like Howard (Adam Sandler) in Uncut Gems. You want to just reach out and hug and tell him to stop making things worse for himself. Audiences see every bad, desperate decision coming and are helpless to stop it. Sandler's performance is so good, that you completely forget this is the guy who played Billy Madison and is known for being funny more than a dramatic actor. 

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave should be required viewing for every American. It should be taught in schools, it's that important. Chiwetel Ejiofor's depiction of the real-life Solomon Northup, a free Black man kidnapped and enslaved for 12 years in the American South. Slavery is America's original sin, one we still are grappling with a century and a half after it ended, and seeing the way Ejiofor and McQueen show it is really, really hard, but really important to do.  

Midsommar (2019)

Horror movies are a lot of different things to different people. They can be campy and fun, or they can be psychologically terrifying. Midsommar is the latter, by a mile. There is nothing "fun" about Midsommar. It's one of the most disturbing movies made in the last decade, and it's a movie that will sit with you for a long, long time. So long, that you probably don't want to put yourself through it again. It's so good at doing what it sets out to do, you never want to see it again. Even star Florence Pugh was greatly affected by it. 

Inside (2023)

2023's Inside is one of those movies I went into knowing virtually nothing about, save for the fact that it starred Willem Dafoe. Wow was that a tough watch to see a man trapped in a gilded prison cell of his own making when Dafoe's character finds himself unable to escape a penthouse apartment he was trying to rob. Dafoe's performance of a man driven to madness is both brilliant and terrifying. 

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

Manchester By The Sea is one of those stories that just when you think things can't get worse, they do. One tragedy after another is revealed as the movie goes on and Casey Affleck's performance is one of the all-time greats in Hollywood history as the man who just can't seem to ever get a break, and is living one of the saddest lives you've ever seen on film. It's such a good movie, but too emotionally draining to watch more than once. 

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

Even for non-Christians The Passion of the Christ is an incredibly difficult watch. The sheer amount of violence so viscerally depicted is stomach-churning and disturbing. I do think it's worth watching once, despite the controversy that has always surrounded it and its director Mel Gibson, but once is enough. 

The Revenant (2015)

Like a few others on this list, The Revenant is here not because of the story it tells, but rather how it's depicted. It's raw and violent and bloody and disturbing. It's a (mostly) true story, which makes it almost too incredible to believe, and Leonardo DiCaprio puts in one of his finest performances, but it's not a movie you watch over and over. 

The Machinist (2004)

2004's The Machinist is worth watching - and impossible to watch again - for one reason, really, Christian Bale's performance. The actor legendarily lost 62 pounds for the role, playing an emaciated, delusional factory worker who is unable to sleep, ever. It's one of the most incredible acting jobs you'll ever see, and never want to see again. 

Requiem For a Dream (2000)

Watching a decent into drug addiction can be among the most harrowing things to see in a movie and no movie is better (and scarier) for that than Requiem For a Dream. Viewers not only watch Sara's (Ellen Burstyn) downward spiral, but they feel it with Darren Aronofsky's direction and Burstyn's amazing performance. 

Oldboy (2003)

When a movie starts out as unsettling as the 2003 South Korean masterpiece Oldboy and only gets more harrowing from there, you know it belongs on this list. Choi Min-sik is amazing as the man imprisoned in what looks like a hotel room for years. As he learns the disturbing fate of his wife on TV, he sinks further into despair. Things only get worse when he is finally freed from the room. 

Civil War (2024)

Alex Garland's Civil War has garnered huge praise that it is worthy of, but the movie's premise and action are so tough to watch, that I'll likely never see it again. That sickness in my stomach I felt as I watched is both high praise and the reason for my decision. Seeing some of the images of a country at war that you never expect to see is haunting and scary. 

The Whale (2022)

Like other examples on this list, The Whale is carried by the performance of its lead actor, Brendan Fraiser. The Academy Award-winning role is played with such raw emotion, that it's impossible to look away from, yet it's not something I ever want to relive. 

Whiplash (2014)

There was a ton of praise for Whiplash when it was released in 2014, and it's deserving of all of it. The depiction of a student learning drums from an impossible taskmaster is nothing short of fantastic, yet you can't watch the movie and not feel all the violence and mental anguish right in your gut for the runtime of the movie. JK Simmons is terrifying in his role as the sadistic conductor pushing Andrew (Miles Teller) to the brink of sanity. 

Happiness (1998)

Though it's billed as a comedy, Happiness is as dark as a comedy can get. It's praised for its bold decision to cover issues that are rarely talked about, and so disturbing I'd rather not do that here, and the cast, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ben Gazzara, Jared Harris, Lara Flynn Boyle, and more. Still, it's hard to watch even once, much less twice.  

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

It's rare for a movie as funny as Life Is Beautiful to be so hard to watch again, but that's exactly what is it. The movie was controversial for the comedic elements within telling a story about the Holocaust, but Roberto Benigni is so good at the tragic clown that it's impossible to appreciate the movie. Even if you never want to see it again. 

American History X (1998)

While some movies are too hard to watch a second time because they are emotionally draining, American History X is impossible to watch again because it's just too disturbing. We don't want to believe that people like Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) exist, though we know they do and that makes it really hard to digest once, much less twice. 

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

The level of self-destruction that Nicolas Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas is astounding. When I saw it, it both repulsed me and made me want a drink, which is disturbing on a lot of levels. It's so heartbreaking to watch anyone so depressed and hopeless as the character is. 

The Pianist (2002)

Like other movies about The Holocaust, The Pianist is incredibly heartbreaking and hard to watch. Unlike movies like Schindler's List, it's really about one man's trials through the whole event and that makes it even more tragic to see everything happening around him. It's not just those murdered in the Holocaust, the survivors are also victims. 

Nightcrawler (2014)

Nightcrawler asks a lot of important questions and despite being almost a decade old, it's still questions we need answers to about the role of the press in our society. For that reason, it's an important movie to watch. The violence and disturbing images make it both critical and appalling to watch and for those reasons, once is enough. 

My Girl (1991)

Everything is tougher when it's kids. The death of a child is among the most heartbreaking things in the world, and My Girl is brutal in that respect. What makes it even harder is how sudden the death is in the movie, making it a wonderful movie, but one that you never want to watch again. 

The Saw Movies

The name of the company that produces the Saw franchise is Twisted Pictures and that name says it all. The horror movies are stone classics in the genre, but for anyone even a little squeamish, these movies are unwatchable nightmares. Even those of us that can stomach them once, have had enough by the end. 

Steel Magnolias (1989)

There is no question that Steel Magnolias has an amazing cast, led by the great Sally Field in one of her best roles. It's still a movie you only want to watch once. It's a little more rewatchable than some of the other movies on this list, but only due to the performances. It's truly one of the most iconic tear-jerkers in Hollywood history. 

The Act of Killing (2012)

Most of this list is fictional movies, but The Act of Killing is a documentary and that makes everything even more visceral. It's not only a true story - and a disturbing one at that - it features the real people involved. It's a naked look at the worst humanity can be and for that it's necessary viewing, but not multiple times. 

Marley & Me (2008)

There are millions of families that can directly relate to Marley & Me, which is what makes it both wonderful and sad. Many people know exactly how important dogs can be, especially to young families, and even though we know in the back of our heads that our dogs won't live forever, yet when we lose them, it really hurts. Marley & Me would be very rewatchable if it ended with the family moving the farm and Marley happily running around. But that's not how it ends and for that, it puts it in the same category as Old Yellar. Once is enough. 

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

There is no question that the role of Sophie Zawistowska in Sophie’s Choice is one of the finest performances of Meryl Streep's career, and that is really saying something. It's a revelation to watch her play this incredibly difficult role, and for that, everyone should see the movie. The "choice" she has to make wouldn't be wished on anyone's worst enemy and for that, we know we can only watch it once. 

Fruitvale Station (2013)

2013's Fruitvale Station forces the audience to confront, viscerally, some of the worst aspects of life in America for African Americans. It's not a pleasant thing to watch, though like others on this list, should be required viewing. It's hard to get through, but completely worth it in the end. It's a movie that will stick with you forever, so once is all you need. 

Mother! (2017)

There is a genre of movie, like Mother!, that are so hard to watch for mothers especially that they deserve their own sub-category of movie. That's not to say it's easy to watch for anyone else. The ending is so disturbing, that I still have nightmares about it, despite loving the movie. 

127 Hours (2017)

Danny Boyle's 2017 film about the harrowing ordeal Aron Ralston (James Franco) went through is so well told and shown that audiences can feel the scariest moments. The scene of Ralston cutting through the nerves on his arm is to this day the most squeamish I've ever felt in a movie. Another movie I absolutely loved, along with many of Boyle's movies, but the only one I never want to watch again. 

In the last century, Hollywood has pumped out a number of amazing and captivating survival stories, and while many of the fictional ones are incredibly impressive, it’s the ones that are based on a true story that carry an extra spark. In the imagination, one can think of a person surviving through just about everything anything, but it means a lot more when you watch someone go through ungodly trials and then find out those events happened to a real individual.

In the past few weeks, audiences have been going in droves to see one such film - Alejandro G. Inarritu’s The Revenant - so we figured that we’d take a moment to reflect on some of the great true story-inspired survival stories that have been adapted for the cinematic experience. Did your favorite make the cut? Read on to find out!

The Revenant

Let’s start off with the film that inspired this list, shall we? While we don’t know all of the exact details of the true story that inspired The Revenant - as it’s a tale passed down through campfire tales – we do have a pretty good idea of the basics. Expert woodsman Hugh Glass found himself savagely attacked by a bear while in the service of a party of trappers, and was left for dead in the woods by the man responsible for taking care of him, John Fitzgerald. Despite being very close to death, Glass managed to use his survival skills to get back to civilization to try and get revenge.

Alejandro G. Inarritu’s big screen adaptation of Hugh Glass’ story does change a few significant details – including Fitzgerald murdering a son Glass didn’t have, and a completely fabricated ending – but what The Revenant certainly does capture is the punishing journey the protagonist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) had to endure.

Alive

Much in the same way that Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia is the ultimate nightmare for people afraid of spiders, Marshall’s Alive is the ultimate nightmare for people terrified of stepping foot on a plane. What makes the latter even scarier, of course, is the fact that it’s based on a true story, and includes true accounts of cannibalism.

In 1972, a plane carrying a rugby team from Uruguay as well as their friends and family wound up hitting an uncharted mountain peak while flying over the Andes, and crash landed on a mountain slope. Thirteen of the 45 people on the plane died during or shortly after the crash, but some would argue that they got off easy after the events that followed. Ethan Hawke leads the cast of Alive as survivor Nando Parrado, and the film really is just as terrifying as it ought to be.

The Way Back

On planet Earth, there are few terrains rougher to hike than the land in Siberia. The combination of the sheer size of the area as well as the tremendously harsh weather conditions were what led the Soviet Union to send their prisoners there, and there wasn’t exactly a tremendous survival rate when it came to escapees. But this is just what makes former Polish prisoner of war S?awomir Rawicz all the more incredible, as portrayed in Peter Weir’s 2010 film <>a href= http://www.cinemablend.com/The-Way-Back-4885.html>The Way Back.

Rawicz (played by Jim Sturgess in the film) was a Polish military officer who was captured by the Soviets in World War II, and sent to a Gulag labor camp for being a spy. Driven to escape and get back with his wife, he organizes an escape with a group of other prisoners, and together they walked 4,000 miles to freedom with limited food rations, supplies and water. It’s an incredible story that’s wonderfully told in The Way Back - which is a film most definitely worth seeking out.

127 Hours

Danny Boyle's 127 Hours and the true story of Aron Ralston has taught us all an extremely valuable lesson: if you're going to go out climbing through canyons in the middle of nowhere, make sure somebody has a general idea of where you are. Otherwise, you may suffer the tremendously terrifying trial that Ralson faced, getting trapped between rocks with no hope of a rescue.

In April 2003, Aron Ralson (played by James Franco in 127 Hours) went out for a casual day of hiking, but despite being a veteran outdoorsmen, skipped a few safety steps. He found himself climbing through a narrow canyon when a rocked slipped and a boulder pinned his arm against the wall. With nobody aware of where he was, there was no chance anyone was going to find him, and for more than five days he subsisted on a little bit of food, rationed water, and urine – eventually using his pocket knife to cut off his own arm for freedom. It’s a harrowing and at times nauseating story, and made for a tremendous movie back in 2010.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

Phillip Noyce's Rabbit Proof Fence is about as emotionally shredding as movies get, and it's hard to watch the movie with the knowledge that what's being portrayed actually happened. The entire story exists because of extreme racism and hate on the level that makes your soul feel bruised. But it’s also an incredible story of survival amazingly following three young girls, all less than 15 years old.

In 1931, sisters Molly and Daisy and their cousin Gracie were taken thousands away from their home in Jigalong, Western Australia, where they were put in re-education camps and put on a path towards life as laborers and servants. Refusing to give up and wanting to go home, the three girls managed to not only escape the camp, but also travel the continent while being pursued by an expert tracker. Not everyone gets a happy ending, and the epilogue drives home that the story most certainly didn’t end just with the survival of the girls. It’s a powerful story that was turned into a powerful film.

Apollo 13

Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 is a bit different than most of the movies on this list. It’s main group of characters doesn’t have to go up against harsh weather conditions, and the search for food rations is not something that ever comes up. But those factors don’t diminish the film at all as a movie about survival – as it’s still very much about a tense and struggle-filled journey home that requires ingenuity and will to survive.

In 1970, a mission to the moon was interrupted when an onboard liquid oxygen tank exploded, knocking the shuttle off course and reducing the power supply. Not only was the crew of the ship (played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton) robbed of their chance to land on the moon, but faced the possibility of never returning to Earth. Apollo 13 is arguably the best film of Ron Howard’s directing career, and it certainly helps that he had such an impressive true story to work from.

Rescue Dawn

Lt. Dieter Dengler went through a good bit of hell back in 1966, when a plane he was flying over Laos was shot down and he was captured by the Pathet Lao. His refusal to denounce America left him malnourished and tortured as a prisoner of war, and had it not been for a well-timed escape and sheer willpower, he would have never made it out alive with a few of his fellow prisoners.

Werner Herzog first told Lt. Dengler’s story in the 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly and that film is just as fantastic as the narrative version that he himself adapted in 2006. Rescue Dawn required yet another transformative performance from lead Christian Bale, who really does an incredible job guiding us through a true and terrifying survival story.

The Perfect Storm

One could make the argument that Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm sits on the border between being a disaster film and a survival film, but it still most certainly qualifies in the latter category. After all, like many of these movies, the central struggle is a fight to return home regardless of what obstacles happen to be in the way. The tragedy in this story is that the obstacles facing the protagonists are three extreme storm fronts that actually prove to be more than they can handle.

Billy Tyne Kr. Bobby Shatford (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg) and the rest of the Andrea Gail crew were in serious danger of finishing the fishing season of 1991 with a yield much lower than what they required, and despite reports of storms brewing, they cast out anyway. This would prove to be the biggest mistake of their lives, as colliding storms would leave them between a rock and a hard place, unable to navigate home and facing waves as tall as 40 feet. It’s a tragic story captured in thrilling fashion in The Perfect Storm, though won’t exactly leave you cheering on the power of the human spirit by the end.

Touching The Void

In 1985, hikers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates climbed to the top of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, but found themselves struck by tragedy when Simpson broke his leg and was then dropped off a cliff suspended from a rope by Yates during a storm. Figuring that his partner was dead, Yates continued his decent down the mountain, but what he didn't know was that Simpson not only survived his fall, but wound up actually crawling into a crevasse and somehow managed to make it down to the base of the mountain.

This absolutely stunning story was turned into a documentary called Touching The Void in 2003, directed by Kevin MacDonald, and presents an absolutely stunning story with the help of both interviews and reenactments. It’s most definitely a documentary worth checking out, though it is certainly only a matter of time before a filmmaker adapts the story for a new Hollywood epic.

Into The Wild

Every film/story we’ve written about here has featured a character or group of characters who find themselves at the mercy of nature and/or fate, but the story of Christopher McCandless – as portrayed in Sean Penn’s Into The Wild - is a horse of a different color. McCandless didn’t so much find himself trapped and fighting for survival, but instead embraced the opportunity to live for it while driving cross-country and hiking to the Alaskan wilderness.

Based on the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, Into The Wild finds Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) as a man who feels completely trapped by modern society and feels a desire to leave it all behind – including his immediate family. It’s a very different kind of survival story, as he is basically rejecting the same thing that most protagonists are striving for, but it’s just as compelling a narrative and comes together as a great movie.

127 Hours may not have taken home any trophies at last night's Academy Awards (and James Franco may not have won many fans as co-host), but anyone who missed the flick in theaters will finally get to see what all the hubbub was about when it hits Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow. To give you a little sneak peak, we've got an exclusive clip from the disc's deleted scenes below.

127 Hours is of course based on the story of Aron Ralston, the real-life rock climber who was forced to saw off his own freaking arm with a dull knife after becoming pinned beneath a rock back in 2003. Franco received a ton of praise for his performance, so it's definitely worth seeing assuming you've got the stomach for it.

The DVD and Blu-ray versions will include several special features, including commentary with director Danny Boyle, producer Christian Colson, and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy. And since Amazon currently has both the Blu-ray and DVDs discounted 50%, it won't cost you an arm and a leg.

Sorry about that.

Here's our exclusive clip from the deleted scenes, where a beleaguered and exhausted Aron has narrowed his future down to only a few simple options, none of them good.

[ed. note: Our ongoing series of Oscar Rants continues with Katey's take on 127 Hours. Watch for more Oscar Rants coming soon. Here's Katey…]

For a long time nobody was even certain that 127 Hours would be a Best Picture nominee. Distributor Fox Searchlight was putting a lot of focus on their other film Black Swan, which was a bigger critical and box office success, and 127 Hours seemed to be jockeying for a Best Picture slot right alongside movies like The Town, Winter's Bone and Blue Valentine, all of them with big pockets of critical support and substantial Oscar campaigns of their own.

But come nominations morning 127 Hours was in the top ten after all, making the second Danny Boyle film in a row that has been nominated for Best Picture, though this time it's virtually guaranteed not to win. With the likes of The Social Network and The King's Speech getting all the attention as they duke it out for Best Picture, and True Grit and Black Swan still forking in money at the box office, 127 Hours has slipped off into the background, unlikely to win any prizes or get much attention at all on Oscar night; even though its star James Franco is hosting the ceremony, he's as famous for the dozen other things he's done in the last year than the film for which he's earned his first Oscar nomination.

What's easy to forget as we pay attention to all the other nominees is that 127 Hours isn't just a critical hit-- 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes-- but it's a fair size box office hit success, earning $35 million worldwide on a pretty tiny budget. It's also one of the most passionately made and exhilarating of the Best Picture nominees, a love letter to human tenacity and the nature that can challenge us to do amazing things. Most of the praise for the film has been centered around James Franco's deeply felt and ridiculously charming performance, and it's true that the movie would have fallen apart under its own ambition had he not been able to command every scene. But Danny Boyle's energetic-- and, OK, sometimes busy-- filmmaking is what drives the movie, his camera an open invitation to the audience to immerse themselves and not just experience Aron Ralston's harrowing ordeal, but feel it.

Take, for example, the infamous arm-cutting scene, presented with extreme close-ups on the wound and Franco's anguished face, an intense drumbeat of a score and sound effects that somehow capture exactly what you think a shattered nerve would sound like. It's an intense and visceral scene, but also a deeply emotional one thanks to the sequence that comes before it, as Aron hallucinates and imagines saying goodbye to both his loved ones and an imagined future son. Boyle knows that to elevate 127 Hours beyond its crazy gimmick-- watch James Franco cut off his arm!-- he has to sink the emotional hooks, and his headlong dive into genuine sentiment pays off, miraculously universalizing the experience of a man who put himself in the kind of danger the rest of us would never go near.

When I walked out of my first screening 127 Hours, I called my mom-- it's just that kind of movie. When I watched it with her on a screener DVD a few months later, she had to leave the room for the limb-sawing sequence, but was mesmerized, just as I was on the third time around, by the film's rich emotions and complete earnestness. Nobody but Danny Boyle could have made it, and it's a singular achievement that, while not as universally beloved or momentous as some of the other nominees, may have the greatest impact on its audience. It is, in other words, far more than an also-ran at the bottom of the Best Picture pack. Aron Ralston probably can't beat Mark Zuckerberg or King George VI for the top prize, but he's probably inspired more phone calls to moms than anyone else in the race.

[Watch for more Cinema Blend Oscar Rants coming later this week right here.]

The 83rd annual Academy Award nominations are being announced this morning by President Tom Sherak and last year's Best Supporting Actress winner Mo'Nique, from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles, California. The winners, chosen from these nominees, will be announced on February 27th on ABC in a ceremony hosted by Anne Hathaway and, 2011 nominees James Franco.

Below is your complete guide to 2011's crop of newly announced Oscar hopefuls. The King's Speech leads all movies with the most nominations, thirteen in all, including nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. Included with the list of nominees below, when possible, will be extra information on the films nominated, to help guide you along the road to the 2011 Oscars.

Best Picture Nominees

Black Swan:

Only Darren Aronofsky could have taken this much emotional turmoil and turned it into a surprise holiday hit. Not that I'm complaining. With one brilliant acting performance, at least three other very good acting performances and a brilliant score that samples heavily from Tchaikovsky, Black Swan is, by all accounts, too sadistic and weird for most of America; yet, the whole thing somehow caught on to the point of a Best Picture nomination. Stranger things have happened, but barring two independent, out of nowhere epic scandals for The Social Network and The King's Speech, it's unlikely Black Swan has any real hope of winning. Still, it's got a better shot than seven other films, and something tells me no one involved is complaining about those odds.

[Read Our Review Of Black Swan]

The Fighter:

The Fighter has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The complaints have ranged from questionable handling of the boxing scenes to overacting to lack of a charismatic main character, but those who truly got on board, me included, found plenty of reasons to root for David O. Russell's film. There's a certain charm amidst all the haymakers and crack smoking. Like its hero, The Fighter languished in development for years, but when it did emerge, it was with the right director and the right cast. It may very well clean up in the acting categories, but it's pretty behind on points in the Best Picture race.

[Read Our Review Of The Fighter]

Inception:

Even though pundits have been predicting a Best Picture nod for months now, most of us well aware of the academy's propensity to bypass summer blockbusters can finally breathe a sigh of relief. It's not just that Inception delivered in a way most big budget action films don't, it's that it was every bit as careful, thought out and interesting as it was fast-paced, exciting and spectacular. If the people had a say, we could go ahead and knock up Inception into legitimate contender status, but as it stands, the nomination itself is the cause for celebration.

[Read Our Review Of Inception]

The Kids Are All Right:

Not quite a real contender but far from a surprise this morning, The Kids Are All Right recently took home the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy, as well as an acting statue for star Annette Bening. She has a better chance of repeating at the Oscars than the film itself, but for a four million dollar flick about a lesbian couple, their sperm donor and two upperclass kids, it's hard to find any disappointment here.

[Read Our Review Of The Kids Are All Right]

The King's Speech:

The most realistic of all the contenders, The King's Speech may currently sit in second place, but it is a clear second place. If anyone can mount an assault on Mark Zuckerberg, it's King George V's stammer-ridden speech patterns. Never underestimate Harvey Weinstein's aggressive Oscar campaigns. Even if he fails to gain any traction though, the movie's numerous nominations and almost 100 million in worldwide grosses have to be considered a coup for a British art film made on a measly fifteen million.

[Read Our Review Of The King's Speech]

127 Hours:

For all the talk about voters shying away from 127 Hours because of the arm cutting scene, the drama apparently didn't end up mattering. At this point, you'd have to think the rest would sit down and watch, right? Even if they don't, the real prize here will come from regular Joes making it out to the theater to finally see this. All of the other films on this list were, to an extent, box office successes, but more was expected from 127 Hours, especially after critics started buzzing about James Franco's brilliant acting performance. Maybe those expectations will finally be matched.

[Read Our Review Of 127 Hours]

The Social Network:

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it would be a shock if The Social Network didn't take home the ultimate prize at this year's Academy Awards. Many initially questioned whether the film had been released too early, but with buzz still as strong as when David Fincher's film first hit theaters in early October, most of the naysayers are fast re-evaluating their early slanders. The Social Network won't sweep the top categories like Silence Of The Lambs, but as far as sure things go, this category is probably the closest.

[Read Our Review Of The Social Network]

Toy Story 3:

It is an absolute travesty Toy Story 3 has absolutely no chance at winning. With another nomination in the Best Animation category, it'll go home with a statue on awards' night, but frankly, that's not enough. The highest grossing film of the year was deserving of every cent it earned. With a nostalgic, sad beginning, a fun, adventurous middle and a heartbreaking closer, Toy Story 3 was a revelation. It may not have been the best film of the year, but it was close, close enough to be drawing real heat about whether it would be the first animated film ever to take home the coveted Best Picture. Never underestimate the animation bias.

[Read Our Review Of Toy Story 3]

True Grit:

Perhaps a little too close to the original for plenty of John Wayne-loving Oscar voters, True Grit is nonetheless a brilliantly executed film by two brothers fast settling among Hollywood's most steady and reliable visionaries. One needs to look no further than the brilliant horse haggling scene to understand just how effortless the Coen's can make it look. No word out of place, no camera angle without reason. True Grit has been pushing aside more expensive and more publicized efforts for weeks now at the box office, and while it's unlikely to do the same with The Social Network, it'll likely get an impressive share of first place votes.

[Read Our Review Of True Grit]

Winter's Bone:

Debra Granik's wonderful independent may not have the polish of the other nominees, but that doesn't mean it's any less moving. Most of these other films talk at you. They floor viewers with their sophisticated camera techniques and multi-layered scripts, but Winter's Bone is a lot quieter than that. It immerses itself in its surroundings, making you work to understand the subtle nuances of life in remote areas, rather than cutting corners to make a more audience-friendly, fabricated product.

[Read Our Review Of Winter's Bone]

Best Director Nominees

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan:

There was perhaps no film released this year that felt more like its director than Black Swan. With a torrent of brilliant, award-winning independents like Requiem For A Dream, Pi and The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky was truly the only man who could have pulled this off. True, he got some help from Natalie Portman, but the final forty minutes of Black Swan is a clinic on fear-drive momentum. This is his first nomination, though it could be argued he's deserved at least two more.

[Read Our Review Of Black Swan]

David O. Russell for The Fighter:

The Fighter languished in development hell for years. At one point, fellow nominee Darren Aronofsky was even attached to directed it, but it turns out David O. Russell was the right man for the job. Previous efforts like Three Kings, Flirting With Disaster and I Heart Huckabees showed some promise, but none of that prepared audiences for his superb work here. He was likely last into the party for this category, but it's hard to argue with the Academy's decision.

[Read Our Review Of The Fighter]

Tom Hooper for The King's Speech:

Tom Hooper for The King's Speech: Thirty-eight year old Tom Hooper may be short on film credits, but he's been nominated for a slew of awards for his groundbreaking work in television. American audiences probably know him best for the HBO John Adams miniseries, but after picking up his first Oscar nomination, it's likely he'll move into features full time.

[Read Our Review Of The King's Speech]

David Fincher for The Social Network:

With a pretty solid resume including Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, David Fincher has been well regarded as a gutsy and capable director for years. He picked up his first Oscar nomination for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, but none of that prepared us for this stunning masterpiece. Fincher has to be considered the favorite here, though he's by no means a shoe-in.

[Read Our Review Of The Social Network]

The Coen Brothers for True Grit:

This is the Coen's third Best Director nomination and the first that has come with any shred of surprise. Fargo and No Country For Old Men both took the Academy by storm, but as much as True Grit won with fans at the box office, the Coen's future at the Oscars was a bit unknown after the film was completely shut out at the Golden Globes. It's unlikely the pair has any real shot at winning, but as the only previous winners, they're far more than also-rans.

[Read Our Review Of True Grit]

Best Actor Nominees

Javier Bardem for Biutiful:

Bardem's inclusion is something of a surprise here, he didn't have much buzz going in and this is otherwise a pretty strong category. Still it's nice to have him recognized here even if he has no realistic chance of beating the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, James Franco, or Colin Firth.

Jeff Bridges for True Grit:

Arguing tit for tat on whether Bridges surpassed John Wayne's Oscar-winning role is a conversation for another paragraph. In some ways, it's not even relevant. Bridges was wonderful as Rooster, and when measuring it against the other nominees, talk of Wayne should be excluded. Alas, there's no keeping the Duke down and most voters will likely shy away from voting for the same character they already honored once. Still, this is nomination number 6 for Bridges, one year removed from his victory in the same category for Crazy Heart.

[Read Our Review Of True Grit]

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network:

Perhaps penalized a bit because some audience members found it hard to relate to his character, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg still secured his first nomination and arguably has the only real shot at taking down Colin Firth. As pronounced as Firth's performance was in The King's Speech, Eisenberg's was mostly understated. No less impressive but perhaps a bit less memorable.

[Read Our Review Of The Social Network]

Colin Firth for The King's Speech:

Two years, two Best Actor nominations for Colin Firth. The affable British actor had quietly built himself a reputation in supporting roles for years, but with a likely Oscar win coming for The King's Speech on top of last year's nomination for A Single Man, we may well see him become one of the more classy and reliable actors working today. I wouldn't mortgage the house on impending victory, but I would certainly take him against the field.

[Read Our Review Of The King's Speech]

James Franco for 127 Hours:

Before 127 Hours, Franco was largely known as a pretty good, not great actor that could seamlessly vault between dramatic and comedic roles. One only has to look to his recent cameo in The Green Hornet to see that whimsical side, but this nomination propels Franco into another category. He's now more than just a likeable face. Only time will tell whether this was a one-off shot at greatness or a sign of things to come.

[Read Our Review Of 127 Hours]

Best Actress Nominees

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right:

Many critics left early screenings of The Kids Are All Right wondering which actress would get the biggest push. Both were given meaty, emotional roles, Bening's a little more centered and Moore's a little more flightly. Personally, I preferred Bening's, but I tend to like understated better than in your face. The dinner scene in particular was what won me over. This is her fourth nomination. Thankfully for her, Hilary Swank was not nominated.

[Read Our Review Of The Kids Are All Right]

Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole:

While most of the other Oscar-nominated independents have overperformed at the box office, Rabbit Hole has yet to really catch on. It's a shame considering how wonderful Nicole Kidman is. There was early speculation the former Mrs. Cruise could become a real contender, but thus far, her charge hasn't gained much momentum. She was previously nominated for Moulin Rouge and won for The Hours.

[Read Our Review Of Rabbit Hole]

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone:

After catching a screening of Winter's Bone nearly six months ago, I thought what a shame it was that she probably wouldn't be recognized. The film just seemed too small and bleak to every catch on. What a fool I turned out to be. SAG and Golden Globe nominations soon followed, and here we are, talking about her Oscar nomination. She's a pretty big longshot to win, but at twenty years old, it would be a shock if she didn't end up a semi-regular contender.

[Read Our Review Of Winter's Bone]

Natalie Portman for Black Swan:

Nominated once before in the Supporting Actress category for Closer, big things have been expected from Natalie Portman since she wowed audiences in Heat and The Professional in the mid-90s, but some of the luster evaporated after the world collectively hated The Phantom Menace. Just as in last years' Brothers, she was the best thing about Black Swan, only this time the overall product was a smash.

[Read Our Review Of Black Swan]

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine:

Without Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine likely would have languished as a good, not great independent. In fact, the film itself sort of embodies the independent spirit. Filmed for almost no money in a short amount of time and encompassing very adult, very somber subject matter, Blue Valentine seemed destined for late night IFC repeats, but thanks to its main stars, it turned into a must-see. Michelle Williams one win, on this, her second try, but this is just the first of many.

[Read Our Review Of Blue Valentine]

Best Supporting Actor Nominees

Christian Bale for The Fighter:

How is this Christian Bale's first nomination? Say what you will about his performance as Batman (his Bruce Wayne is unsurpassed), the man has simply destroyed nearly every role he's taken. From his body-altering work in The Machinist to his brilliant turn in The Prestige, Bale is as good as it gets, and if there's any legitimacy to the score cards, he'll walk away a happy winner on award's night.

[Read Our Review Of The Fighter]

John Hawkes for Winter's Bone:

Like Renner in The Town, John Hawkes inserts a certain unhinged alphamale-ness into Winter's Bone. He's a wild animal that only bothers to bite when sufficiently provoked. The terror in his wife's eyes is enough to let you know he's no one to be trifled with, but when he does bother speaking, it's perhaps the most terrifying in the entire film. This is Hawkes' first nomination, and with any luck, it'll lead to more of the same.

[Read Our Review Of Winter's Bone]

Jeremy Renner for The Town:

Renner was spectacular in his Academy-recognized performance in The Hurt Locker last year, and he was no less moving in The Town, a great film that he's overtly the best part of. Playing the loose cannon, he wrecks every scene he's in with a sort of unflappable angst and determination. His character may not be as well spoken as Geoffrey Rush's but that doesn't mean he's any less perfect for his job.

[Read Our Review Of The Town]

Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right:

Another supporting actor that's mysteriously never been nominated, Mark Ruffalo had a wonderful year in this category. One could argue he was perhaps more deserving of recognition for his handling of Scorsese's Shutter Island, but no snub, no need to complain. Ruffalo was totally believable as the hapless sperm donor in The Kids Are All Right, especially in the scene where Annette Bening tells him off. A lesser actor would have mustered more of a response, but it's a credit to his abilities that he seemingly lets her own that exchange.

[Read Our Review Of The Kids Are All Right]

Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech:

On most other years, I'd likely be touting Geoffrey Rush as my supporting actor performance of the year, but this field is so astoundingly stacked this year, I'm not even sure if he was the second best. Regardless, he's definitely worthy of his fourth nomination, and some have even predicted he might have enough support to overtake Christian Bale. The next time you watch The King's Speech, pay close attention to his change in demeanor from when he's giving therapy lessons to when he's auditioning. Brilliant.

[Read Our Review Of The King's Speech]

Best Supporting Actress Nominees

Amy Adams for The Fighter:

In less than ten years, Amy Adams has gone from ill-advised Cruel Intentions sequels to a three times-nominated Academy darling. How? By making the most of every single role she's been handed. The Fighter's Charlene should have been mostly a throwaway, but somehow, with Amy Adams at the helm, she's one of the more memorable parts of a great movie.

[Read Our Review Of The Fighter]

Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech:

Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech: Three months ago, Bonham Carter may well have been the odds on favorite, but the Supporting categories are notoriously difficult to predict. It's no shot at her performance, it's just a question of whether there was really enough meat to warrant a win. I would stand behind it, but that's mostly because I wasn't blown away by anyone this year with the possible exception of Melissa Leo. This is Helena Bonham Carter's second nomination after The Wings Of The Dove.

[Read Our Review Of The King's Speech]

Melissa Leo for The Fighter:

Selfish, brash and obnoxious, Melissa Leo is a powerhouse throughout The Fighter. She's the type of woman who stomps, kicks and outwills her competition, whether they be invading girlfriends or well-intentioned family members. You may remember Leo was previously nominated for Frozen River, but unlike 2008, she has a real shot at cleaning up here.

[Read Our Review Of The Fighter]

Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit:

It wasn't a question of whether Hailee Steinfeld was good enough, it was more a question of whether she'd get enough people to recognize her as a Supporting Actress. The studio had been pushing hard for her to land in this category, but BAFTA had none of that and it's likely many Academy voters agreed. Still, now that she's here, she likely has a better chance than people are giving her credit for. Acting opposite Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon isn't kid stuff. A lesser actress would have turned herself into a slideshow, but Steinfeld more than holds her own.

[Read Our Review Of True Grit]

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom:

She's the only major female character in a movie about violent, ruthless men, but Jacki Weaver's Smurf manages to be more terrifying than all of them put together, without ever saying a cross word or striking a blow. The Australian actress has gotten attention in her native country for decades, but with Animal Kingdom she's broken through to a global audience, and makes an excellent veteran addition to a supporting actress field crowded with newbies.

[Read Our Review Of Animal Kingdom]

Best Animated Feature

How to Train Your Dragon

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Best Original Screenplay

Another Year

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King's Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Best Foreign Language Film

Biutiful, Mexico

Dogtooth, Greece

In A Better World, Denmark

Incendies, Canada

Outside the Law, Algeria

Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Inception

The King's Speech

True Grit

Cinematography

Black Swan

Inception

The King's Speech

The Social Network

True Grit

Costume Design

Alice in Wonderland

I Am Love

The King's Speech

The Tempest

True Grit

Documentary Feature

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Gasland

Inside Job

Restrepo

Waste Land

Film Editing

Black Swan

The Fighter

The King's Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Makeup

The Way Back

Barney's Version

The Wolfman

Original Score

How to Train Your Dragon

Inception

The King's Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Original Song

”Coming Home” from Country Strong

”I See the Light” from Tangled

”If I Rise” from 127 Hours

”We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3

Animated Short

Day & Night

The Gruffalo

Let's Pollute

The Lost Thing

Madagascar, A Journey Diary

Live Action Short

The Confession

The Crush

God of Love

Na Wewe

Wish 143

Sound Editing

Inception

Toy Story 3

Tron: Legacy

True Grit

Unstoppable

Sound Mixing

Inception

The King's Speech

Salt

The Social Network

True Grit

Visual Effects

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Hereafter

Inception

Iron Man 2

Great movies are built on great ideas, or amazing performances, or the perfect script. Maybe they're best remembered as a completed whole, a piece of art which doesn't come together until every single frame has unspooled on screen. But more often than not, it's the moments we remember most; those special, singular places in time where everything comes together on screen for a few brief seconds or minutes to create something so indelible, so perfect, you'll carry it with you for the rest of your life.

Maybe the rest of the movie doesn't really work or maybe you're in the middle of watching one of the year's best films. Whatever the movie, in that moment, for those seconds, you're carried away by unstoppable laughter, soaring on waves of emotion, or left sinking into the pits of sadness and despair. For a few specific seconds some films are able to capture lightning in a bottle. 2010 had more than its share of those unforgettable, lightning in a bottle moments on film. These are the ones we'll remember most.

SPOILER WARNING: The following discussion contains major spoilers from each of the films involved. If you haven't seen the movie, skip it and go on to the next one.

Aron Ralston Smiles in 127 Hours

The most unforgettable moment in 127 Hours isn't the now infamous five minutes James Franco's Aron Ralston spends cutting off his own arm, it's what he does afterward. Trapped for days with his appendage wedged between a boulder and a narrow canyon wall, Aron has had little to hope for except a quick and painless death. Dehydrated and hopeless, he finally begins tearing at his own flesh. It seems clear that when he starts he never hoped to actually survive but suddenly after hacking and tearing and suffering, suddenly he's free.

Aron stumbles back against the canyon wall and stops, almost surprised to be moving under his own power, and when he stumbles backwards he looks back at the spot where he'd been imprisoned, he looks back and the remains of his severed limb... and smiles. It's that moment, more than any other in 127 Hours which you'll never get. It's the smile of pure freedom, it's the smile of someone who suddenly has a chance at life. For that one second, he doesn't feel the pain of his missing arm or the stiffness in his water-deprived muscles. There is only freedom.

Unfortunately that particular scene from 127 Hours isn't available to view online. Check out a different clip below instead, as a reminder of the circumstances from which Ralston freed himself.

Obliviate in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

We've never really seen much of Hermione's home life in the Harry Potter movies. All we've been told is that her parents are, well, normal. In a few brief seconds at the start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 though, we learn all there is to know about the Grangers. They are normal, very normal and judging from the pictures on their mantle they deeply love their daughter.

But they're in danger and to keep them safe, Hermione erases their memory of her. As she raises her wand behind unsuspecting parents, the pictures on their mantle filled with happy times spent doing things with their daughter fade away. Her parents hunch over on the couch, as if all the happiness has just been sucked out of their lives. Hermione will remember their life with her, but they won't.

Watch Hermione sacrifice her past to keep the people she loves safe, with a small part of the obliviate scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 embedded below.

MacGruber Blows Up Heroes in MacGruber

The best Saturday Night Live movie since Wayne's World may have been slandered by critics and underappreciated by fans, but it's still responsible for one of the better misdirection scenes in comedy history. After tracking down and reassembling his imposing gang of professional wrestlers, MacGruber takes pause to ridicule Ryan Phillippe, as half a dozen or so American heroes with over one hundred years of combined combat experience chant "fuck the brass" from inside their specially-equipped van. And then it explodes, taking all their brotherhood and expertise with it.

As MacGruber frantically checks the wreckage for survivors and screams for someone to call 911, viewers finally get a taste of what they might be in for. It's surprising and strangely brilliant and far more clever than most people give it credit for. What can you really expect out of the jackass that just blew up his entire support network? An hour and a half of unconventional, foul-mouthed hilarity. Don't bother disagreeing. MacGruber will just head butt you in the face until you reconsider.

Watch MacGruber blow up his own team embedded below:

Albert's Penguin Story in The King's Speech

Before he becomes embroiled in matters of state, we first meet Albert as a family man who never really expected to take the reigns of power. He loves his children yet because of his stammer finds himself often utterly unable to communicate with them. In what is without a doubt the film's most moving, human moment Albert comes in to kiss his daughters before bed. They beg him to tell them a bed time story, and the sadness in Albert's eyes at that moment is so great, that it threatens to take on a life of its own.

Knowing he's unable to tell a proper story Albert attempts to compensate and, wearing the tuxedo he'll need for his late night engagement, gets down on his hands and knees to imitate a penguin for his daughters, while stuttering out a penguin story. The story is simple and his delivery is halting and unsteady, but Albert loves his daughters and attempts to compensate by flopping around the room, without hesitation or embarrassment. They love him for it.

The King's Speech is only recently in theaters, so this scene isn't available to watch online. Do yourself a favor and whether or not you've already seen it, buy a ticket for The King's Speech right now.

Nina Dances The Black Swan in Black Swan

Unable to find the darkness inside herself necessary to dance the dance of the Black Swan for her performance in Swan Lake, Natalie Portman's Nina spends most of the film slowly driving herself mad in pursuit of perfection. Backstage between dances, she slowly gives in to the madness and it gives her power on stage, the power to pull off the greatest performance of her career. Nina steps on stage to dance the black swan and while the audience simply sees an amazing dance, in Nina's mind she's slowly beginning to transform into a bird as the darkness she's had bottled up in her is suddenly released.

Director Darren Aronofsky shoots the entire thing beautifully and Portman, who worked tirelessly to transform her body for the role, actually performs a lot of the moves herself. The result is perhaps one of the best ballet sequences ever captured on screen.

Here's the first part of Nina's dance of the black swan, embedded below. It gets weirder and goes further, shortly after this clip ends.

Allen Gets His Wooden Gun Back in The Other Guys

In The Other Guys Will Ferrell's loser cop Allen is so incompetent that he's given a wooden gun. Except he can't even hold on to that, and it's soon taken from him by the movie's bad guys. Allen and his partner (Mark Wahlberg) are called into the Captain's office to be chewed out for their actions where the Captain informs them that in a move of ninja-like humiliation their attackers have returned Will Ferrell's wooden gun and we learn, for some reason, have also improved it by staining the wood and rubbed it down with linseed oil. Allen is impressed by the attention to detail. It's a scene so ridiculous that it probably couldn't have happened in a proper movie, but that's just how The Other Guys rolls. The plot may not work at all, but the sheer absurdity of what's going on makes this moment, along with a lot of the others in this film, one of the funniest of the year.

Will Ferrell's admiration of his gun's new finish isn't available online, but here's what happens later when he loses his gun again:

Henley Sequence in The Social Network

For those who row crew, there are few events more hotly anticipated than the Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames. Rowers from around the world go every year and future Olympians Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are no exceptions. Standing 6'5” and weighing in at 220 pounds, the twins work year round to try and bring home the top prize for their beloved Harvard University.

Starting quietly, we hear the sound of Edvard Grieg's “In The Hall of the Mountain King” and as the camera pans around the town of Henley-on-Thames, England, the tilt shift camera work making everything look miniature. The music grows as we see the boats for the first time, slowly moving towards us from a distance. The rowers' oars move in perfect synchronicity, silent coxswains calling out orders to their teammates. Grieg's masterpiece gains volume and tempo as we get closer to the rowers as they grit their teeth, flex their arms and try to keep their breath. As the two boats get closer and closer to the finish line, staying neck in neck, the music becomes deafening and the rowers look more and more exhausted, but never give up. Finally, one boat crosses the finish line and… it's the Hollandia Roeiclub from the Netherlands that finishes first by less than a full boat length. The Dutch rowers are jubilant though bushed, and the Winklevosses appear to be near tears. From high above the race, the Winklevoss' business partner, Divya Narendra, turns away. It's yet another second place finish.

Relive one of the most brilliant moments from David Fincher's The Social Network below.

Hiccup And Toothless Touch in How To Train Your Dragon

It happens in incremental moments, this connection between a Viking boy and the dragon he's been taught to fear and kill his entire life. Of course, since it started with Hiccup shooting down Toothless in the night sky during a battle, it was obviously going to take some time for these two to warm up to each other. First Hiccup brings a fish, and Toothless coughs up a bit of the tail so Hiccup can share-- making sure he swallows, of course. At that point it's too early, though, and Toothless runs away the moment Hiccup reaches out his hand. Then Hiccup draws Toothless in the dirt with a stick, and Toothless imitates him, sketching circles in the ground around Hiccup with a giant tree branch. All the while we come to see Toothless as less fearsome dragon and more eager housecat, trying to understand and communicate with his new friend.

Finally it happens-- Hiccup reaches out his hand to Toothless's nose, eyes averted to the ground, and Toothless presses into the boy's palm. It's the beginning of a friendship that will define each of their lives as well as this lovely, adventurous movie, and it starts with a simple touch between creatures trained to kill one another above all else.

Revisit the start of the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless below:

Drinking With Terry Hoitz in The Other Guys

When Will Ferrell's Allen has trouble at home with his way too hot to be with him wife, Mark Wahlberg's Terry Hoitz has the solution: Drinking. Not just any drinking, drinking with Terry Hoitz. Drinking with Terry Hoitz, as it turns out, involves such highly entertaining antics as pouring beer on bar patrons, firing off guns in a crowd while shotgunning vodka, and peeing on pool tables. It's all told in a pretty eye-popping, single-take still image which the camera weaves through while The Black Eyed Peas “Imma Be” blares on the soundtrack providing a funky beat to their antics.

For those of you keeping count, that's the Black Eyed Peas second appearance on this list. 2010 was their year, and probably with good reason. This scene just wouldn't be as good without their vibe.

Watch Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg go drinking Terry Hoitz style, embedded below:

Big Daddy Takes Down A Warehouse in Kick-Ass

While he doesn't know it yet, Kick-Ass is screwed. Tricked by a guy he believes to be a fellow superhero, he's being driven to his doom and all he can do is sit in the passenger seat jamming out to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. Or at least that's what Red Mist thinks as he alerts the men at the warehouse that they are on their way. Fortunately for Kick-Ass, Big Daddy beats both of them there.

Sneaking in like a ninja, the hulking former cop dressed up like Batman lays waste to every man in the building. In the background, John Murphy's “In The House In A Heartbeat” from the 28 Days Later score slowly rises as the superhero glides around. Knife slashes throat. Kick guy in the chest. Knife stabs chest. Shots fired with pistol. Use human shield. More stabbing, more shooting. Ascend the stairs, dodge the bullets. Shoot a guy, throw a grenade. Hop down, steal shotgun and fire away. In less than a minute, a warehouse filled with trained killers becomes a warehouse filled with corpses. After that, there's nothing more to do then to set it all aflame.

Watch Big Daddy bring all the baddies down in the video below:

John And Cyrus Discuss Panic Attacks in Cyrus

Mothers are like the Godfather's Luca Brasi. They're fiercely devoted, unwaveringly intense and usually the worst possible people to piss off. Cyrus and John at least agree on that. Their seething hatred for each other has evolved into open warfare, but they both know no good will come out of telling Molly, John's girlfriend and Cyrus' mom. For fear of evil eyes and more nights on the couch, they take to a spare bedroom to whisper vicious threats before the woman in their lives enters, setting the stage for a delicate, back-and-forth, overly nice verbal manipulation about the best way to handle panic attacks.

Cyrus claims he's been having them and needs to move back home. John invents a bullshit, heart-wrenching story about how overcoming his fight with them in college without help turned him into the man he is today. And on and on it goes, a brilliant one-up battle of back-and-forth fabrications before Cyrus turns up the heat and shyly asks John if he isn't allowed back. Internally weighing the pros and cons, John decides to give up the battle to continue the war. The whole thing is ridiculous, yet it's still strangely authentic. Where lesser films would have devolved into over-the-top improv, Cyrus treads lightly, letting the humor come from the men's conniving dislike rather than the absurdity of individual phrases. To paraphrase David Merrick, it's not enough to win if your enemies don't lose.

This scene isn't online yet, but the movie's on Blu-ray and DVD. Run out and pick it up now.

Black Widow's Fight in Iron Man 2

Until Iron Man 2 no one had ever really thought of Scarlett Johansson as an action star, but in a little under two-minutes of battle her character, the Black Widow, delivers a series of roundhouse punches and mace to the face with such ferocity that it's not only easily the best scene in Iron Man 2 but one of the best straight up action sequences of the year.

While Tony Stark is off fighting more metal robots, Black Widow aka Natalie Romanov goes with Stark's driver Happy (Jon Favreau) to break into a secure facility and shut down the metal monsters demolishing the city. To get in she'll have to strip down and slide into a slinky catsuit, then demolish a veritable army of security guards while Happy stands around getting his ass kicked by one dude. Favreau's sense of humor about himself in the scene is a lot of fun, but not as much fun as watching Scarlett go nuts on a bunch of henchman.

Revisit Black Widow's fighting skills below:

I've Got A Dream in Tangled

Though he likes breaking femurs, you can count Brad Garrett's hook-handed thug amongst the dreamers. The same goes for all the other Barbarians Rapunzel meets in the scariest saloon this side of Dodge City. They may not have clean consciences (or hands), but below the gruff exteriors, they're just grown-up kids with unfulfilled aspirations. For almost a century, Disney has thrived on littering its films with these goofy, idealistic side characters and perhaps none have ever been given a better musical tribute than Tangled offers its ragtag band of loveable miscreants.

A lesser film would have laughed at these Philistines, but directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard eschew mean-spirited finger pointing in favor of well-deserved giggles. Anyone can laugh at the fish out of water or the Barbarian out of key, but Rapunzel gleefully joins in, seeing the Brutes as partners rather than enemies. Her decision serves her well later, as it does the audience. “I Can See The Light” may be the film's emotional center, but “I've Got A Dream” is far and away its most charming. Walt Disney would be proud.

Sing along with the first part of “I've Got A Dream” from Tangled in the video below.

Tell us about your favorite movie moments of 2010 in the comments below.

To get more of Cinema Blend's Best Of 2010, click here.

In the last few years I've been on a roll, seeing more movies in each calendar year than the one before and constantly building a wider base of knowledge in this industry I'm so, so lucky to write about every day. 2010 was no exception; I attended the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals for the first time in addition to writing regular reviews here, and wound up seeing a huge variety of films, from obscure arthouse stuff that won't see theatrical release until next year (just wait until I get to write about Meek's Cutoff) to expensive spectacles I barely remember a few months later (Sex and the City 2, painful as it felt at the time, did eventually fade).

But as much mediocre or simply bad stuff I saw, there was a whole lot of good to find, to the point that writing a top 20 list-- much less a top 10-- was exceptionally difficult. I had no doubt about the three or four movies at the top of my list, but everything else from there was practically a toss-up, and there are dozens of different permutations of this list I'll probably wish I'd written tomorrow. I wouldn't call many of these movies perfect, but all of them have something spectacular and special to offer, adding to a year's cinematic landscape that's complicated, rich, and totally enjoyable. We'll put it this way: 2010 brought us one of the most inventive and visually lush summer blockbusters we've ever seen, and I couldn't find room for it on my top 10.

Check out my list below, and don't forget to look at the list of great movies that didn't make the cut before fighting me over my choices in the comments.

1. Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky takes his flashy, feverish and dynamic filmmaking style and applies it to a fairy tale, with results that are heart-stopping, hilarious and tragic all at once. Working with Natalie Portman in an intense, unfiltered way that usually only male actors get to explore, Aronofsky crafts a story that on the surface is a beautiful and crazy parable for artistic devotion, but crackles with authentic insight about the life of a ballerina, the way women can be burdened or empowered by their sexuality, mother-daughter relationships both vital and toxic, and how the most intense competition of all is against oneself. It's a pinned-to-your-seat, breathless movie experience, but also one of the more thought-provoking works of art about art I've seen in years.

Best Moment: Nina transforms into the black swan onstage.

2. The Social Network

Months after The Social Network became indisputably the most-discussed movie of the year, we're still left with so many questions. How much does the movie actually have to say about Facebook and the way it's changed modern relationships? How much of the real Mark Zuckerberg is in there? How much are we even supposed to sympathize with this kid? Beneath the film's relentless technical perfection, clever writing and stupendous acting there are these bigger emotional, philosophical questions that writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher lead you to but refuse to solve. It's devilish and original entertainment suffused with a streak of melancholy and nostalgia for a distant but long-gone past, pointing a finger at all of us living our lives online through the story of the boy whose invention changed us all.

Best Moment: Mark asks Eduardo to come back to California; the emotions on their face say everything the two soon-to-be-enemies can't vocalize themselves.

3. The Kids Are All Right

Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko spent seven years putting together her comedy about a complicated modern family, and all that time well spent resulted in a near-perfect script, plus an ideal cast to embody the flawed, hilarious, almost unbearably human characters at the center of her story. The movie is generous but also unflinching with all its characters, including the kids of the title, and allows for the emotional satisfaction of a good comedy while also acknowledging the wrinkles of real life. It's not political, even in this time of so much strife over gay marriage and same-sex parents, but a supremely enjoyable comedy of relationships and manners and love and how hard and necessary all of those things can be.

Best Moment: Joni (Mia Wasikowska) watches her family drive away after dropping her off at college.

4. Exit Through the Gift Shop

When the Banksy-directed documentary premiered at Sundance nobody knew what to expect from the famously prankish and reclusive street artist-- something weird and artsy and experimental, right? While Exit Through the Gift Shop may still be trickier than it seems-- how real is Mr. Brainwash, really?-- it's really just a good, entertaining and fascinating document of an underground movement the rest of us could only wish to be part of. Then, just when you think you're getting a funny and informative history lesson, the movie folds in on itself and asks all kinds of question about the meaning of art and "good" art, all through the hilarious story of a self-made artist who took the world by storm.

Best Moment: Banksy and Thierry pull an art stunt in Disneyland, and Banksy rides Pirates of the Caribbean while Thierry is questioned by the Disney police..

5. True Grit

It's a beautiful, meticulously crafted, old-school Western right down to the spurs, but the Coens infuse this hoary tale with their trademark wicked humor and affection for violence that walks right up to letting you enjoy the bloodshed then reminding you of the very real consequences of bullets and fists. It's not quite as thematically rich as some of their other work, but beneath the handsome surface is True Grit is the story of the American frontier myth, viewed through the eyes of a little girl who grows up in front of us over the course of her epic quest. .

Best Moment: Mattie crosses the river.

6. 127 Hours

Aron Ralston spent 127 hours with his arm pinned beneath a boulder, and came out of the ordeal with only a renewed zeal for living life more than most of us would even try. His boundless energy and appetite for everything the world has to offer is matched here by Danny Boyle, who uses his wandering and excitable camera to turn Aron's accident into a deeply personal, visceral, and emotional experience for the audience. LIke Aron emerging from the desert, you walk out of this movie feeling almost unbearably alive.

Best Moment: The unforgettable arm-cutting scene.

7. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

It's not just that director Edgar Wright is doing truly amazing things with filmmaking here, inventing a whole new editing style and combining visual effects with reality in utterly fantastical ways and telling a story made of bursts and fragments and battles of the bands. It's that beneath all the whiz-bang wonder is a painfully true story about growing up and learning to love someone other than yourself, learning how to take responsibility, be a man, and get over all the hangups that come with including someone else in your life. Scott and Ramona's love may not be destined to last forever-- the movie itself makes a pretty strong argument that they won't--but all the hurdles they overcome on their way to each other speak those universal truths about how damn hard it is to love anyone, yourself included.

Best Moment: Scott and Ramona's first date.

8. Restrepo

Embedded for a year in one of the most dangerous corners of the war in Afghanistan, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger got unprecedented access to the very young men fighting this complicated, endless war, and instead of building what they learned into a polemic or a lesson, they let the soldiers of OP Restrepo-- named for their ebullient fallen comrade Juan Restrepo-- speak for themselves. Through their memories and testimonials and some astonishingly unfiltered battle scenes, Hetherington and Junger shape a narrative about the war and its costs, and both the young people fighting it for us and the Afghan citizens they're still theoretically trying to help over there.

Best Moment: Operation Rock Avalanche, and its aftermath

9. Winter's Bone

It's really just a simple story about a young woman hunting down her deadbeat father, but Winter's Bone is so suffused both with details about its Ozark setting and Odyssean level of drama and stakes that it turns, in small scenes and inscrutable supporting characters, into something deep and mythic. Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes turn in tremendous performances as characters who emerge as even tougher and more nuanced as the film develops; Ree Dolly, the determined and fearless daughter with quickly dwindling options, is a bull-headed and tricky heroine in a part of the world that requires her particular kind of courage.

Best Moment: Ree finds her father, and her armor cracks just a little..

10. Another Year

Lesley Manville's deep, heartbreaking performance as the lovelorn and always tipsy Mary is the film's showstopper, but Mike Leigh and his cabal of brilliant actors build Another Year as a series of quiet stunners, one season after another in the course of a year between a group of older friends. Witnessing the comfortable marriage between Tom and Gerri makes aging seem not so bad, while seeing the likes of Mary or Ken, or even Imelda Staunton's character in a brief cameo, make you wonder how any of us go on from day to day. Deceptively simple on the outside but stuffed with all the love and heartbreak and fulfillment a well-lived life can offer, Another Year is, simply, lovely.

Best Moment: The dinner scene between Tom and Gerri's son Carl, his new girlfriend, and the oddly jealous Mary.

Great Movies That Didn't Make The Cut: (I had an exceptionally hard time culling down even this list) Inception, How To Train Your Dragon, The King's Speech, Rabbit Hole, Blue Valentine, Cyrus, Inside Job, The Square, Please Give, The Freebie, The Fighter, Easy A, I Am Love, Animal Kingdom, Un Prophete.

Just In Case You Were Wondering: Grown Ups was the worst movie of the year. It's unfathomably lazy and bottom-feeding and basically plotless, plus it represents the complete deterioration of so many comic talents we once had faith in. Oh and it made $271 million worldwide, meaning it will only spawn even more intolerable knockoffs.

For more of Cinema Blend's 2010 wrap-up go here.

Eva Mendes and Jeremy Renner were on hand to announce this year's nominees for the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the prizes traditionally handed out the night before the Academy Awards and recognizing the independent films that might be too small, weird or generally out-there for Oscar attention. Nominated for the top prize of Best Feature were 127 Hours, Black Swan, Greenberg, The Kids Are All Right, Winter's Bone-- all films, save Greenberg, firmly in the Oscar race as well.

Also well-represented in the nominations was Rabbit Hole, nominated for Best Director for John Cameron MItchell, Best Screenplay for David Lindsay-Abaire as well as dual acting nominations for stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart. There was also special mention for Nicole Holofcener's Please Give, which snagged a Best Screenplay nod as well as the Robert Altman prize for ensemble acting.

Films with strong Oscar buzz often do well at the Independent Spirits, no matter how much they may claim to be an alternative to the status quo, and with Winter's Bone having cleaned up at last night's Gotham Awards, it's a real contender here too. Check out the full list of nominees below (via IFC.com) and let us know your favorite choices in the comments.

BEST FEATURE

127 Hours

Black Swan

Greenberg

The Kids Are All Right

Winter's Bone

BEST DIRECTOR

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

Danny Boyle, 127 Hours

Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right

Debra Granik, Winter's Bone

John Cameron Mitchell, Rabbit Hole

BEST SCREENPLAY

Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right

Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone

Nicole Holofcener, Please Give

David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole

Todd Solondz, Life During Wartime

BEST FIRST FEATURE

Everything Strange and New

Get Low

Night Catches Us

The Last Exorcism

Tiny Furniture

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Diane Bell, Obselidia

Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Nik Fackler, Lovely, Still

Bob Glaudini, Jack Goes Boating

Dana Adam Shapiro, Evan M. Wiener, Monogamy

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD

Daddy Longlegs

Lbs.

Lovers of Hate

Obselidia

The Exploding Girl

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Greta Gerwig, Greenberg

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

BEST MALE LEAD

Ronald Bronstein, Daddy Longlegs

Aaron Eckhart, Rabbit Hole

James Franco, 127 Hours

John C. Reilly, Cyrus

Ben Stiller, Greenberg

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Ashley Bell, The Last Exorcism

Dale Dickey, Winter's Bone

Allison Janney, Life During Wartime

Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jack Goes Boating

Naomi Watts, Mother and Child

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Samuel L. Jackson, Mother and Child

Bill Murray, Get Low

John Ortiz, Jack Goes Boating

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Adam Kimmel, Never Let Me Go

Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

Jody Lee Lipes, Tiny Furniture

Michael McDonough, Winter's Bone

Harris Savides, Greenberg

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Marwencol

Restrepo

Sweetgrass

Thunder Soul

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Kisses

Mademoiselle Chambon

Of Gods and Men

The King's Speech

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

ACURA SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD

Hossein Keshavarz, Dog Sweat

Laurel Nakadate, The Wolf Knife

Mike Ott, Littlerock

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD

In-Ah Lee, Au Revoir Taipei

Adele Romanski, The Myth of the American Sleepover

Anish Savjani, Meek's Cutoff

AVEENO® TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD

Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Sweetgrass

Jeff Malmberg, Marwencol

Lynn True, Nelson Walker, Summer Pasture

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

Please Give

Director: Nicole Holofcener

Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy

Ensemble Cast: Ann Guilbert, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Lois Smith, Sarah Steele

127 Hours begins its theatrical run this weekend and it’s the kind of movie you’ll want to see once, and then never again. It’s everything you’ve heard, as grisly and horrifying and moving and interesting as Danny Boyle and James Franco could possibly make it. It’ll roll out slowly in limited release, so even though the film opens this Friday for a lot of you it may be awhile before it shows up in your theater. It’s worth the wait, and with the film’s first release only a few days away, I’d recommend skipping these clips and simply reading my review instead.

But for those of you who can’t wait, Fox Searchlight has given us six new clips from 127 Hours to share with you. Spoilers are perhaps irrelevant where this movie is concerned. It’s based on a true story that’s been widely publicized, so you already know what’s going to happen. Still, it should be noted that the clips which follow are actually pretty spoiler heavy, and if you’re hoping to stay in the dark about most of what goes on in the film before seeing it, then avoid them. Otherwise, read on and I’ll try to provide context for each clip as you watch them.

Warning! The following movie clips may contain 127 Hours spoilers.

An enthusiastic and confident Ralston begins his journey into the wilderness, and perhaps foreshadowing what’s to come, gets careless and takes a spill.

This conversation is far more important than it seems. In a few moments Aron Ralston’s life will be changed forever. These may be the last words he ever exchanges, with anyone. And for the next 127 hours, the memory of this conversation will be a part of what keeps him alive.

Here’s the big moment. Aron Rolston, alone in a canyon, falls and find himself trapped. You may not want to watch.

Aron tries to come to grips with his situation. He takes stock of his surroundings and methodically surveys his available assets.

Trapped in the shadow of a canyon wall for more than a day, Aron gets his first taste of sunlight and remembers the childhood moments that shaped his love of the outdoors.

Lonely and feverish, Aron remembers better times tinged with regret.

If you haven't heard yet, I'm extremely excited to be representing Cinema Blend for the first time ever at the Toronto Film Festival this year. In addition to spending some time in a city everyone seems to love, I'll have the chance to catch some of the fall's biggest movies in their North American and sometimes World Premieres-- the lineup already includes Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go, Robert Redford's The Conspirator, Ben Affleck's The Town and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, among many others.

As if that weren't enough, 44 more titles were announced today, and they include even to be excited about-- the Will Ferrell drama Everything Must Go, Danny Boyle's new film 127 Hours, the Joaquin Phoenix documentary I'm Still Here, Dustin Lance Black's directorial debut What's Wrong With Virginia, the Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox-starring Passion Play and Matt Reeves's Let Me In. I have no idea how I'll make time to see all of it, but I have a feeling with this much out there to see, I won't be getting much sleep.

Click here for the previously announced lineup, and read the new additions below. The Toronto International Film Festival gets started September 9, so get ready for as much coverage as you and I can handle.

Some smart people on the Internet had deduced this a few weeks ago, but now it's official-- Danny Boyle's next project will be 127 Hours, a movie about Aron Ralston, a rock climber who cut off his own arm in the Utah wilderness after it was pinned underneath a boulder.

And you thought the kid jumping into the poop in Slumdog Millionaire was bad! Despite rumors that Ryan Gosling would play the lead role of the fearless climber, Variety reports that they're still in the casting process, for a role that probably every actor south of 35 is dying to play. For extra good luck Boyle is reuniting with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and producer Christian Colson, less than a year after all three won Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire. Fox Searchlight, of course, will also distribute.

It seems like a smart move for Boyle, who's never made a movie exactly like the one before it, to get as far from Slumdog territory as possible. 127 Hours will be an uplifting story, of course, and will probably have to feature some Jamal-style flashbacks given that the story is about Ralston pinned to a boulder by himself for five days. But I'm imagining a completely different Danny Boyle emerging for this project, and that's something we can all look forward to.