The 2014 best picture award was presented at the 86th Academy Awards, held in March 2014 to honour films released in 2013, and it remains one of the most competitive Best Picture races in recent memory. Nine films were nominated, spanning historical drama, space adventure, crime comedy and intimate character studies, and the winner was 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen’s harrowing drama about a free Black man kidnapped into slavery. This guide lists all the nominees, explains what made each one notable, and sets the race in the context of a year when the Academy’s choices reflected an unusually wide range of filmmaking.
The 2014 Best Picture Award: An Overview
The 2014 best picture award is remembered not only for its winner but for the strength of the field as a whole, because several of the nominated films are now regarded as modern classics. Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón’s space survival drama, won seven Academy Awards overall, the most of any film that year, while Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street each won major acting and writing attention. The breadth of the nominations, from a three-hour historical epic to a small-scale domestic drama, showed the Academy rewarding very different kinds of ambition in the same year.
The Winner: 12 Years a Slave
12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen and based on the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, tells the true story of a free Black musician from New York who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in Louisiana, where he remained for twelve years before regaining his freedom. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup, with Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in key roles. Its unflinching depiction of slavery, filmed in long, restrained takes that refuse to look away, was widely praised as a landmark in American historical cinema, and its Best Picture win was seen as a significant cultural moment.
The film won three Academy Awards in total: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nyong’o, and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Ridley. Its success also drew new attention to Northup’s original memoir, which had been little known outside academic circles, and it prompted renewed public discussion of slavery’s history in the United States. For many critics, the 2014 best picture award recognised not just a well-made film but a work of historical importance, and 12 Years a Slave continues to be taught and discussed as a major achievement in twenty-first-century cinema.
The Other Nominees
American Hustle, directed by David O. Russell, is a crime comedy-drama loosely inspired by a real FBI sting operation of the late 1970s, featuring an ensemble cast including Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Its energetic style, period detail and overlapping cons made it a favourite with audiences, and it received ten nominations, although it ultimately won none, a rare outcome for a film with so many nominations. Captain Phillips, directed by Paul Greengrass, dramatises the 2009 hijacking of a container ship by Somali pirates, with Tom Hanks as the ship’s captain, and was praised for its tension and realism.
Dallas Buyers Club, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, stars Matthew McConaughey, who won Best Actor, and Jared Leto, who won Best Supporting Actor, in a drama about the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the underground trade in unapproved treatments. Gravity, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, stars Sandra Bullock as an astronaut stranded in orbit, and its groundbreaking visual effects and immersive sound design earned it seven Academy Awards, including Best Director for Cuarón. Her, directed by Spike Jonze, is a quietly original romance between a lonely writer, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and an artificial intelligence voice, played by Scarlett Johansson, and it won Best Original Screenplay.
Nebraska, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street
Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne and filmed in black and white, follows an elderly man who believes he has won a sweepstakes prize and travels with his son to claim it, in a gentle, bittersweet portrait of family and small-town America. Bruce Dern was nominated for Best Actor for his performance as the father, and the film’s restrained humour and affection for its characters made it a critics’ favourite. Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears, stars Judi Dench as a woman searching for the son she was forced to give up for adoption decades earlier, in a drama based on a true story that combined humour, anger and compassion, and it was praised for Dench’s central performance.
The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a stockbroker whose rise and fall is told in a riotous, three-hour excess of wealth, fraud and hedonism, based on a real memoir. Its energy and DiCaprio’s performance made it one of the most talked-about films of the year, although its depiction of excess also divided critics. Together with the other nominees, these three films show why the 2014 best picture award race is remembered so fondly: the field ranged from quiet black-and-white drama to full-throttle satire, and almost any winner would have been defensible. For more on Oscar history, see our Academy Award nomination guides and our look at the following year’s nominees.
The 2014 Best Picture Award Ceremony and Its Legacy
The 86th Academy Awards ceremony was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and is remembered for several light-hearted moments, including a star-studded selfie that briefly broke social media records, alongside the serious business of the awards themselves. Beyond Best Picture, the night’s major winners included Cate Blanchett as Best Actress for Blue Jasmine, Matthew McConaughey as Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club, and Alfonso Cuarón as Best Director for Gravity, a split between Picture and Director that often signals a genuinely close race. The ceremony’s balance of celebration and reflection suited a year in which the nominated films dealt with weighty subjects, from slavery and AIDS to fraud and loss.
The legacy of the 2014 best picture award extends beyond the ceremony, because the nominated films have continued to shape discussions of cinema in the decade since. 12 Years a Slave is now regarded as a canonical historical film, Gravity is cited as a turning point for digital cinematography, and Her looks increasingly prescient as artificial intelligence has entered everyday life. The race also marked a moment when the Academy embraced a wider range of voices and subjects, a trend that has continued in subsequent years, and it remains a useful starting point for anyone exploring the best films of the 2010s.
How to Watch the Nominees Today
Most of the films nominated for the 2014 best picture award remain widely available through streaming services, rental platforms and physical media, although availability varies by country and changes over time, so checking your local services is the best approach. For viewers new to the field, a good order is to start with the winner, 12 Years a Slave, then Gravity for its technical achievement, then Dallas Buyers Club and American Hustle for their performances, and finally the quieter pleasures of Nebraska, Philomena and Her. Each film rewards attention in a different way, which is precisely why the race is still discussed.
Watching the full set of nominees is also a rewarding way to understand how the Academy Awards work, because comparing nine very different films clarifies what Best Picture actually rewards: not a single quality, but a combination of craft, ambition, cultural resonance and timing. The 2014 field is an unusually strong example, and it is often recommended as a starting point for film lovers who want to explore a single Oscar year in depth. However you approach them, these nine films offer a vivid snapshot of cinema in 2013, and of the stories that Hollywood chose to honour.
| Film | Director | Academy Awards won |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Years a Slave | Steve McQueen | 3, including Best Picture |
| Gravity | Alfonso Cuarón | 7, including Best Director |
| Dallas Buyers Club | Jean-Marc Vallée | 3, including Best Actor |
| American Hustle | David O. Russell | 0 from 10 nominations |
| Captain Phillips | Paul Greengrass | 0 from 6 nominations |
| Her | Spike Jonze | 1, Best Original Screenplay |
| Nebraska | Alexander Payne | 0 from 6 nominations |
| Philomena | Stephen Frears | 0 from 4 nominations |
| The Wolf of Wall Street | Martin Scorsese | 0 from 5 nominations |
Frequently Asked Questions
Which film won Best Picture in 2014?
12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 86th Academy Awards, held in March 2014 for 2013 films.
Which film won the most awards that year?
Gravity won seven Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón, although it did not win Best Picture.
How many films were nominated for Best Picture?
Nine films were nominated, reflecting the Academy’s system of between five and ten nominees.
Conclusion
The 2014 best picture award went to 12 Years a Slave, but the race is remembered for the extraordinary strength of the whole field, from Gravity’s technical brilliance to the performances of Dallas Buyers Club and the quiet power of Nebraska and Philomena. Taken together, the nine nominees capture a year of remarkable range in mainstream cinema, and they remain essential viewing for anyone interested in the films the Academy chose to honour. Start with the winner, then explore the rest, and you will understand why this Oscar year is still discussed more than a decade later.
