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With award season running at full-throttle, it's the perfect time to get your Best Picture predictions in before the Academy Awards in February. But which movie will it be? Does "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" stand a chance against the big Oscar bait movies at the end of the year?

The race is wide open, and with no clear front-runner, we need you to help pick which movie is the most likely to take the top prize. Vote for your choice of most likely to win Best Picture in our poll below!

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Tags Best of 2011, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, moneyball, The Artist, The Descendants, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Help, War Horse

And with that, the Oscar race is on!

Tuesday (Nov 29) morning was a busy one for the films hoping to vie for Academy Awards in February. The New York Film Critics Circle listed its winners and the Film Independent Spirits announced its nominations simultaneously in a couple hours of dizzying Oscar buzz.

Both awards are usually the earliest indication of which films could lead the pack when it comes time to announce the Academy Award nominees in January. The NYFCC were so early this year, in fact, that they had to delay their awards until after screening David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," to which they awarded nothing.

Perhaps the biggest story coming out of both announcements was the emergence of Michael Hazanavicius's ode to golden-era silent film, "The Artist," as perhaps an early front-runner for Best Picture. The film had earned raves during the festival circuit a few months ago, but faced minor backlash during it's limited release last week. Now with a Best Picture and Best Director win from the NYFCC, "The Artist" is the film to beat.

A welcome surprise came with Brad Pitt's NYFCC Best Actor win for both "Moneyball" and "Tree of Life." Meryl Streep earned the first of her expected many wins for "The Iron Lady."

While the Spirit Awards focus on smaller films, the nominations cemented "Beginners" status as the indie charmer hit of the year. The movie, which stars Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, surprised the night before when it won Best Ensemble and shared Best Picture with "Tree of Life" at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

Check out both the winners from the New York Film Critics Circle and Spirit Award nominations below.

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Tags brad pitt, independent spirit awards, meryl streep, moneyball, nyfcc, Oscars, The Artist

If you haven't seen "Moneyball" yet, here's a little bit of a spoiler for you: it's good. It's very, very good. Not that a movie coming from Oscar nominees Brad Pitt and director Bennett Miller being excellent should strike anyone as a surprise, but the film's success doesn't rest entirely on their shoulders; in many ways, "Moneyball" is Jonah Hill's homerun.

Hill delivers an against-type turn as Peter Brand, an expert number-cruncher and stats analyst who comes to work for Billy Beane (Pitt) as the assistant general manager for the Oakland Athletics. Not even a full week after release, Hill's "Moneyball" performance has already generated awards buzz, a notion that takes Hill himself completely off guard.

"I don't know, I don't know," he told MTV News when asked how he feels about the buzz surrounding his performance. "I'm just really proud of the movie. Stuff like that is crazy when you hear someone ask you that question legitimately."

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Tags jonah hill, moneyball

By Ryan. J. Downey

FROM MTV MOVIES: Simba and company partied like it was 1994 at the box office over the weekend as "The Lion King" remained #1 for the second weekend in a row. The 3-D re-release beat back competition from four wide releases while hauling in another $22.1 million, according to studio estimates.

All four of the other movies in the weekend's top five were new releases, but none had the strength to topple the legendary Disney animated film, which has grossed $61.7 million domestically in its 3-D format alone.

Brad Pitt's "Moneyball" and the kid-friendly "Dolphin Tale" were in close competition for the #2 spot, while Taylor Lautner's "Abduction" (which has been savaged by film critics) and the action-centric "Killer Elite" (also not a critical darling) both failed to generate much excitement.

"Moneyball" was still just barely ahead of "Dolphin Tale" at press time. The baseball-centered flick has done well with critics, according to film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a 94 percent critical average. The movie took in $20.6 million, just $340,000 more than "Dolphin Tale."

Read the full story at MTV Movies!

Tags Abduction, dolphin tale, moneyball, the lion king

by Brian Phares and Josh Wigler

"Moneyball," directed by Bennett Miller and starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, slides into theaters this weekend, telling the true story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics season.

Pitt stars as Billy Beane, a former Major League Baseball player who now serves as general manager of the A's in a time of turmoil: the team has lost three of its star players, and lacks the proper funding to compete against the big boys back east. But where there's a will, there's a way, and with the help of newly appointed assistant general manager Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill), Beane milks a bad situation for all it's worth and forms a competitive team out of virtually nothing.

Though not quite a grand slam, "Moneyball" certainly wins the game with a must-see effort for any and all fans of the sports drama. Check out five reasons to see "Moneyball" past the jump.

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Tags brad pitt, jonah hill, moneyball

When "Moneyball" hits theaters this weekend, you'll see just how good Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill's characters really are when it comes to figuring out the game of baseball. But how do these actors hold up in a very different game… the most important game… the game known all the world over as The Yes/No Show?

We put their honesty skills to the test in our latest edition of After Hours at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month. Watch the video to see if either Brad or Jonah have sex tapes, whether or not "Jersey Shore" is a regularly viewed program in the Pitt-Jolie household, and much more!

Tags brad pitt, jonah hill, moneyball

This opening night, like so many recent ones in the lockout-shadowed sports world, almost didn't happen.

Brad Pitt's "Moneyball" was shutdown back in the summer of '09, just days before production was to begin, over concerns that director Steven Soderbergh's take wouldn't attract roaring crowds at the multiplex. But Pitt predicted something of a ninth-inning rally, and one new director later (Bennett Miller of "Capote" fame), the David-vs.-Goliath tale about the Oakland Athletics shot back to life and, almost two years later, premiered at the MLB team's stadium on Monday night.

Pitt was on hand under the stadium floodlights, as were costars Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman, plus Miller, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and ballplayers including current A's designated hitter Hideki Matsui.

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Tags brad pitt, moneyball

Jonah Hill was on hand on Sunday night to attend the 2011 Video Music Awards where a lot of crazy stuff went down. Like what? Well Lady Gaga was a man named Jo Calderone who tried to kiss Britney Spears, Beyonce announced she was preggers with Jay-Z's baby and we finally saw a trailer for the highly-anticipated "Hunger Games."

But before the party even kicked off, Hill walked the red carpet and chatted with MTV News about finally getting "21 Jump Street" into theaters next year. And, despite everything we know, he still refused to admit that the original "21 Jump Street" star, Johnny Depp, is in it.

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Tags 21 Jump Street, jonah hill, moneyball

The 2011 Toronto Film Festival doesn't kick off until September 8, but we already have a strong idea of what's in store for the show's 36th year.

Among the movies making appearances at this year's TIFF are Brad Pitt's "Moneyball," David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," the Ryan Gosling-starring "Drive" and George Clooney's "The Descendants." For a full list of the announced films, head on over to Deadline.

Check out the rest of today's big movie news past the jump!

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Tags All Quiet on the Western Front, brad pitt, Drive, Invisible Monsters, Mimi Leder, moneyball, Ryan Gosling, Samir Rehem, The Nutcracker, Toronto Interntational Film Festival

The prospect of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill starring together in a movie has tantalized us since "Moneyball" was first announced, but the first trailer for the film has us officially on board.

The story itself is an intriguing one. Brad Pitt stars as Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who has to restructure his team based on a tight budget. He turns to recent Ivy League grad Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill in a fictionalized version of Paul DePodesta, to help him crunch stats with new computer-generated analysis and chose his team players in a way completely different from the traditional route. It's a gamble that Beane means to win, even if the trailer leads us to believe it isn't all smooth sailing.

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Tags aaron sorkin, brad pitt, Chris Pratt, jonah hill, moneyball, philip seymour hoffman, Robin Wright