There's always one Oscar nomination every year for Best Picture that makes people go, "What?"
Last year, it was the silent black-and-white French film "The Artist" which ended up taking home Best Picture.
This year, one of those films is "Amour" – the other may be "Beasts of the Southern Wild" – and, it's also French.
Here's what you should know about the film that may sneak in to win the most coveted award at the Academy Awards.
Mini-plot spoilers follow.
The basics:
- As we said, it's French. The title translates to "Love."
- It's the brainchild of Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke who is who is best known for 2009's "The White Ribbon" and 2005's "Caché."
- The film follows Georges who grapples with the decision of how to continue to care for his 80-year-old wife Anne as her health continues to depreciate after a surgery leaves her paralyzed.
- The couple's daughter Eva pressures Georges to admit Anne into a nursing home, something he promised his wife he would never do.
What it reminds us of:
Take the sad storyline behind "The Notebook" and expand that into the film's entirety.
The stars:
Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Georges. Earlier this year, he won the European Film Award for Best Actor for the film.
Do you know anything else he was in?
Trintignant is primarily a French actor so probably not unless you've seen his two award-winning films from the '60s, "The Man Who Lies" and "Z."
Emmanuelle Riva plays Anne who was also nominated for Best Actress. At 85, she's the oldest person to ever be nominated in the category.
The last time Riva was nominated for any sort of award was in the '60s for Best Actress in "Therese" and another film "Hiroshima, mon amour."
Why you should care:
It won best film at both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the European Film Awards.
Overall, the film has been nominated for 37 awards, including its five Oscar nods (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Screenplay). Of those awards, it has won 15 to date.
Riva has won three awards for Best Actress in her role while Trintignant has clinched one win as Georges.
