This year's crop of Best Picture nominees has thus far made nearly $1.2 billion, which was off from last year when Avatar, Up and The Blind Side dominated. The ten nominees have averaged $119.3 million, which was also down from 2003, the last popular year when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King triumphed. Still, the Academy's choice to expand the Best Picture category to ten nominees last year once again netted the inclusion of audience favorites, namely Toy Story 3 ($415 million) and Inception ($292.6 million). Those two scored Best Picture nominations while being left out of the more selective Best Director field.

Besides Toy Story 3 and Inception, the Best Picture nominees in order of gross are True Grit, The Social Network, Black Swan, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours and Winter's Bone. While only three of these movies have topped $100 million, Black Swan and The King's Speech will likely join that club.

Most years, box office has been a strong indicator of which movie will win Best Picture: from 2000 to 2008, the winner was ultimately one of the top two highest-grossing nominees. That theory didn't hold last year, though, as the third lowest-grossing nominee, The Hurt Locker, beat out Avatar. Hurt Locker earned only a little over two percent of Avatar's total, and it was the least popular winner on record. This year's presumed front-runners are The Social Network ($95.4 million) and The King's Speech ($57.3 million), and neither is poised to enjoy blockbuster status by the time the winners are announced on Feb. 27.

Links

• Full List of Nominees & Their Grosses

• Nomination Counts by Movie

• Nomination Counts by Studio

• 2009 Winners/Nominees & Their Grosses

• Oscar Box Office Main Page