"Atonement," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood": A side-by-side, head-to-head look at strengths and weaknesses.

Whicever film wins the Acadamy Award this year for Best Picture, one thing is certain: it’s facing some mighty fierce competetion.

The five films are all creative, bold and the darlings of critics across the country. They do what drama does best: hold inner conflicts up to the light, challenging audiences to question values and beliefs. Here’s a brief side by side analysis of the Oscar contenders for Best Picture:

Juno

• Strengths: This film is whip-smart, funny, irreverent and fresh. It takes you on a rollercoaster ride hosted by the mind and thoughts of the title character, a pregnant adolescent considering giving her unborn baby up for adoption. It has just enough farce so the reality doesn’t sting too much, with enough bite to save it from farce.
• Weaknesses: No one dies. People usually die in films that win Best Picture: six of the last seven years, someone’s death has served as a major plot point in the winning film. In the other one, A Beautiful Mind, someone goes crazy. (Maybe from not killing anybody.)

Michael Clayton

• Strengths: Stellar acting from the entire cast, excellent script and tight direction from first-timer Tony Gilroy. The film provides excellent character studies and psychological profiles all the way around. The cinematography is beautifully stark, underscoring the film’s bleak realism.
• Weaknesses: The larger plotline – aside from the character studies – may come off as little more interesting than a modern mystery thriller / crime drama. Some of the editing is jumpy, disorienting and distracting.

There Will Be Blood

• Strengths: Absolutely astounding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. The story grabs the viewer by collar from the get go, and doesn’t let up. The film is larger than itself, and that’s saying something: its exploration of power, greed, obsession and hypocrisy go way beyond the scripted characters.
• Weaknesses: Day-Lewis’ performance shows through at times as too much acting, in the grand theatrical sense of Greek tragedy. The plot in the last third slips away a bit, as if even the story makers couldn’t control their central character, or figure out what to do with him.

No Country for Old Men

• Strengths: Simply mesmerizing. One is held like a rabbit caught in the headlights. The audience will never meet these people, or know anyone like them. But they somehow seem more real than most people on the street. Javier Bardem is uncanny; evil personified. Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin round out perhaps the best ensemble cast that never shot a scene together.
• Weaknesses: While the ending left many people perplexed or unsatisfied, it is indeed the only one that works for the film. Given the themes, it’s surprisingly inevitable. But those themes are in essence nihilistic, not a very inviting world paradigm. It smacks too much of an exploration of evil for the sake of evil, rather than for the sake of strengthening humanity.

Atonement

• Strengths: This is the most visually stunning film of the five. There is eye candy in every scene, from the unforgettable fountain, to Keira Knightley’s emerald evening gown, to the bitter beaches at Dunkirk (in an unforgettable 5 ½-minute tracking shot that may call too much attention to itself). Knightley is captivating, ravishing even, and the other actors deadly earnest. Extra points for lovely diction in the throes of passion.
• Weaknesses: The film attempts to juggle too many themes at once in a mere two hours: romance, class differences, war-is-hell, the nature of truth and fiction, and penance for misdeeds. The result is that each comes off flatter than if it were given more attention on its own.

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