LOS ANGELES - History is alive and kicking at this year's Oscars in an unusually rich year for movies that plumb the distant and recent American past and have resonated with both audiences and voters.
Four of the nine Best Picture nominees at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, Iran hostage drama Argo, Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty," slavery revenge fantasy Django Unchained and U.S. presidential drama Lincoln, are the most discussed films of the awards season, with their very different takes on historical events.
"It's an interesting year for thought-provoking movies that have a semblance of reality.
“Some look to where we come from and where we are going, and they get people thinking," said Pete Hammond, awards columnist for entertainment industry website Deadline.com.
It's a sharp contrast with 2012 when the silent film comedy The Artist was embraced by the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a love letter to old Hollywood.
This time, terrorism, slavery, war, politics and the CIA take center stage in films that try to make sense of calamitous times for the United States and draw lessons for the future.