On episode 259 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello and AwardsWatch contributors Dan Bayer and Josh Parham to go back 10 years to take a look at the 87th Academy Awards, celebrating the films of 2014.

 Ten years ago, Hollywood’s biggest night was won over by Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman, a dramedy about a washed up actor trying to form a comeback away from the big screen and back on stage in New York City, and while doing this, also making sure he can keep him mind sane. The film was a critical, commercial success, though winning Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay for Iñárritu that night has put a target on his back for not only beating films like Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but was the first of back to back years where the director found himself capturing Oscar gold. With these wins, it has become one of the most divisive years of the Oscars in recent memories, alongside a slew of other questionable winners and nominees inside a bountiful year of incredible cinema from the year 2014. A lot of Oscars from this year need to change hands, and the AW team is here to rewrite some Academy history.

 In their in-depth discussion, the AW team talked about the film year of 2014, briefly discuss talk about Birdman as a Best Picture winner, do an extensive conversation over the below the line categories and nominees for the year, and then the new version of the AW Shoulda Woulda Coulda game, where instead of individual replacements, they must decide as a group who the nominees and winners should be in the top eight categories. The rules of the game state they can only replace two of the nominees that year from each category, except in Best Picture, where the group could replace up to three films to make up the final set of five nominated films. Like past retrospective episodes, it was a fascinating, fun conversation including spirited debates, alliances, vote swinging, celebrating various movies, performances that aren’t normally talked about and more that we all hope you enjoy.

 You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 3h21m. We will be back next week to do discuss the latest film release, Blitz, and doing a character actor movie draft.

 Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).