Oscars' 9 Best Pictures Are Extras In a World of Box Office Heroes

2. The Dark Knight Rises
Studio: Warner Brothers
2012 U.S. box office take: $448 million

Oscar No. 2. Django Unchained
Studio: Weinstein Company
2012 U.S. box office take: $157 million

Wow, so you're going to end the Batman series with allusions to Occupy Wall Street, an intellectual terrorist and one this year's Best Supporting Actress nominees in the same catsuit that pumped the brakes on the careers of Sean Young, Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry?

That's great. We'll be over here watching the one about the slave who exacts revenge on the master who stole his wife while dropping racial epithets about as often as you'd expect to hear them in the days preceding the Civil War. The end of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was about as dark and bombastic as predicted and raked in a whole lot of cash, but limped it was to a merciful end that in no way lived up to the promise of the Heath Ledger-led The Dark Knight in 2008.

Django Unchained, meanwhile, came tethered to its own controversy and made Spike Lee madder than two-straight late-game Reggie Miller three-pointers against the Knicks. Audiences and Academy members didn't care, though, as Django Unchained became the highest-grossing film of Quentin Tarantino's career and earned the film five Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. While Batman films are usually good for a few technical award nominations here and there, this year's installment was shut out of the Oscars entirely.

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