It’s Thursday morning and I’m watching the theatrical cut of George Lucas’s 1977 film Star Wars as I make my final Oscars predictions, which you can read here below. At the 50th Academy Awards in ’78, Star Wars was nominated for 10 awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and ended up taking home six: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound.

Back in those days, there were only five Best Picture nominees: Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point. Ultimately, Star Wars would lose to Woody Allen‘s neurotic romantic comedy Annie Hall, even though Lucas’s sprawling space saga had changed the film industry – and the world – forever.

Fast-forward to 2013, where the casual filmgoer may argue that the Academy Awards are irrelevant because they don’t reflect popular taste. The truth is – they never have, and that was never the purpose. Overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Awards were created to maintain and celebrate a standard of excellence that is often contradictory to box-office returns and pop culture trends.

The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has partnered up with the people of Gallery 1988 and fellow artists to commission creating posters for the 2013 Best Picture Nominees. Oscar.com revealed the poster specs, which could mean that these posters could go on sale. And if you are a cinephile, a fan of any of these movies, or love to collect posters created by independent artists, then you should be hoping that these go on sale, because these posters look great.

Check out the posters of all nine of the nominees below and don’t forget to tell us which ones you would like to have hang on your walls.

Below is all the info you need to know about the posters, plus a small profile on the artist behind them. Be sure to check out Oscar.com and Gallery1988.com on occasions to see if these posters do go up on sale.

“If all serious lyrical poets, composers, painters, and sculptors were forced by law to stop their activities, a rather small fraction of the general public would become aware of the fact and a still smaller fraction would seriously regret it. If the same thing were to happen with the movies, the social consequences would be catastrophic.” – Erwin Panofsky, 1934.

2012. 365 Days. 140 Films. 280 Hours. That’s 11.66 days I’ve dedicated this year to watching new releases. Obviously, I haven’t seen every film this year (That’s My Boy, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2), but I have seen enough great movies to make the task of creating a Top 10 List a total pain in the ass.

The annual ritual of narrowing down hundreds of titles to just 10 is a cruel but necessary discipline as a film critic. I, however, lack discipline and have found it necessary to cheat. I’ve expanded my Top 10 to include 10 Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order) and a Top 5 Documentaries list, making for my 25 Best (or Favorite, if you prefer) Films of 2012.