All three of those were very well directed and acted movies. When you look at all of the movies that came out this year, they are definitely among the best/most well rounded, even if they can be pretty super-pro American (Zero Dark Thirty is the chief culprit of this, but you should have known that going into the theater) Life of Pi: amazing book, but the movie didn't really capture it well. Never saw Silver Linings Playbook or Beasts of a Southern Wild or Armour Django was awesome, but maybe a little extreme for a "Best Picture" win so that was understandable Les Mis was actually a lot more enjoyable than I would have thought I think that The Grey or TDKR should have been in the running though. Seems like everyone forgot about them either due to the shooting (TDKR) or a very early release date and cancelled rerelease (The Grey). "End of Watch" should have had some nominations, not best picture, but it definitely deserved a mention. tl;dr My list for Best Picture Nominees would be: TDKR, The Grey, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Django, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Skyfall, Les Mis, and Lincoln

y u forget the Hobbit and the Avengers?

I don't think the Hobbit or Avengers were good enough to be up for Best Picture. Great movies though, but Avengers seems like a normal superhero movie, but with multiple good guys, and the Hobbit was such a let down compared to the first 3 LotR movies that Peter Jackson shouldn't be rewarded with a nomination

It wasn't a let down to me at all. It was amazing, IMO.

It was a good movie, but nowhere near the quality (specifically of the special effects/cgi and the character design) of the original trilogy. The goblins looked god awful

They were ugly, but there were extremely realistic looking. And they were supposed to be ugly dude :P

Look at how downsy/cartoony all of the Hobbit ones look compared to the LotR versions

The trolls talked in this movie, so they had to have an expressive face. The goblin doesn't look any worse then in LoTR, and neither does the Warg. Also, Goblin Scribe, your argument is invalid.