It’s only a couple of short weeks before the 2008 Oscar nominees are announced, and the internet is abuzz with prognostications. One hotly debated topic is whether or not Wall-E can pull off a Best Picture nomination, or even a win. It would be the second animated film to be nominated in the category, after Beauty and the Beast, which got the honor before the Animated Feature prize existed. Will the stodgy old Academy seat Wall-E at the kid’s table, giving it an easy win in the animation category, or will it be allowed to play with the big boys?

A best pic nomination for Wall-E would be a rare honor for animation in general, but it would also be a long over due rarity for another reason: Wall-E would only be the second best pic nominated film in the history of the Oscars to be set in the future. The only one to date is A Clockwork Orange. When you consider how many nominees are period pieces (I didn’t care to count), this represents a massive bias on the part of the Academy. It’s clear that they love the past, but they hate the future.

What would the history of the Academy Awards look like if the Hollywood elite wasn’t terrified of speculative fiction? Below, seven movies about the future that should have been nominated for Best Picture:

1. Metropolis

The first Academy Awards, held in 1929, gave honors to films produced in both 1928 and 1927, so this should have at least been nominated. Of course the nomination process was rather primitive back then, and American audiences probably wouldn’t have been familiar with German films such as this, but for the purpose of revisionist history, we’ll say it got snubbed. There’s something very 20th century about Art Deco skyscrapers and class conflict, but Metropolis‘ depiction of 2026 still feels relevant today. The film laid the ground work for countless sci-fi tropes, including sexy female androids (see #5).

2. On The Beach

This 1959 post-apocalyptic drama stars Gregory Peck as the captain of a US submarine stationed in Melbourne. Set in the near future of 1964, nuclear war has wiped out the rest of the planet, and it’s only a matter of months before the wind brings the deadly radioactive fallout to Australia. The film is a beautiful meditation on the inevitability of death, featuring a solid performance by Ava Gardner, and the most melancholy work by Fred Astaire I’ve ever seen (he does not sing or dance). On the Beach was nominated for both Best Score and Best Editing Oscars, and director Stanley Kramer won a BAFTA.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Kubrick’s masterpiece wasn’t completely snubbed; it received four Oscar nominations, with a win for Visual Effects. But the fact that it didn’t get a Best Picture nomination is criminal. The film is consistently listed on top 100 movie lists, and breaks the top ten on plenty of them. It’s clear that something went very wrong that year. Perhaps the snub can be blamed on the fact that the film was so far ahead of its time, that many people just didn’t get it. Pauline Kael said it was “a monumentally unimaginative movie.”

4. Solaris

This 1972 Russian science fiction film is just as cerebral as 2001, and perhaps an even deeper plumb of the human psyche. The Palme d’Or nominated film, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, follows the story of psychologist Chris Kelvin as he ventures to a distant space station, orbiting the water-covered planet Solaris. The station has fallen into disarray, and Kelvin soon figures out why. An apparition of his dead wife appears, apparently created by Solaris using Kelvin’s brain waves. The film is slow and introspective, and is one of those rare gems of science fiction that transcends the trappings of the genre. It should have at least been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; instead, it wasn’t nominated for anything.

5. Blade Runner

For some, saying that Blade Runner was one of the five best films of 1982 is stating the obvious. Perhaps the blending of sci-fi and noir seemed at the time to be nothing more than a cheap genre gimmick. But the enduring quality of Blade Runner makes it clear that it deserved more than the two nominations in received for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects. The snub of Blade Runner is perhaps the best way to prove the Academy’s bias toward the past, when you consider that Ridley Scott’s 2000 film, Gladiator was not only nominated for Best Picture, but it won! I repeat, Gladiator won Best Picture, while Blade Runner was not even nominated. Which did you think was the better movie?

6. Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s dystopian black comedy might have had a shot at few Academy awards if Gilliam hadn’t burned every bridge in Hollywood as he made it. The film operates in the dystopian mold cast by 1984, with a healthy dose of dark humor and fantasy. It’s one of the most egregious examples of a studio re-cutting a film and essentially destroying it in the process. Fortunately, Gilliam’s cut is readily available on DVD now, but the director’s trustworthiness in Hollywood is still highly suspect. Gilliam is one of those filmmakers who, no matter how good a movie he makes, will never be welcomed into the inner sanctum. Still, Brazil deserved a Best Picture nomination.

7. Children of Men

When the 2006 Best Picture nominees were announced, you may have heard a faint stream of cursing on the wind. That was me. I know that people tend to win Oscars when they’re “due,” which easily explains why The Departed took home the top prize, but the fact that Children of Men wasn’t even nominated is just silly. It was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, which is the Academy’s way of saying, “Wow, this movie is incredible, but it’s about the future, so let’s only honor that one really long take near the end.” Bullshit.