We had three films release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Gone Girl

In the Oscar game, many prominent directors require a significant, broadly popular effort to enter the Academy’s annual competition and from that point forward, they have consistent success with them. Two recent examples come to mind. David O. Russell was popular with critics, but didn’t get big Oscar recognition until The Fighter, after which each new film has been a major Oscar player. The other is David Fincher.

Fincher began his career as a music video director. When he took the helm of the third film in the Alien franchise, he was following very big names Ridley Scott and James Cameron. It also became his first Oscar nominee in 1992 picking up a nomination Best Visual Effects. His next movie, Seven was likewise nominated for a single Oscar, this time in Film Editing. His third film The Game was an Oscar bust, but he came back in the Best Sound Effects Editing category with his fourth film Fight Club. He followed those with two more Oscar failures Panic Room and Zodiac.

Then, in 2008, his luck turned around with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A critical and box office smash, the film was widely appealing and secured 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. The film went on to win in the Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects categories. However, it was enough to put him on the map as a noted filmmaker whose eventual Oscar win just depended on the right vehicle. The Social Network, his follow up to Benjamin Button should have been that film. He was again in the Best Picture race as part of the film’s eight-nomination slate. His film again won three Oscars, but because of Harvey Weinstein’s flogging of The King’s Speech, Fincher would have to bask in the glow of his bountiful precursor and critic wins for a little while longer.

Although 2011’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was frequently discussed for a potential Best Picture nomination, it fell short with only five nominations, winning the award for Film Editing. Three years later, his appeal with audiences continues unabated and critics are quite positive about his latest film Gone Girl. The buzz is mounting for the film and while there is certainly competition in the game at this point, signs appear very positive for Fincher to finally secure a more prominent Oscar legacy. The film is sure to be nominated in several key categories, including his frequent appearance in Best Film Editing, but acting nominations are virtually assured for Rosamund Pike at the least and possibly even Ben Affleck.

The Good Lie

Reese Witherspoon has two potential Oscar vehicles this year. Her first is for this immigration story about three young African men who come to the U.S. to pursue their dream while the government’s iffy machination threaten their safety and keep a fourth friend form joining them with their new personal liaison played by Witherspoon.

The trailers paint this as a paint-by-numbers, heart-tugging drama about a stuck-up woman who discovers her soul with the help of innocent young men whose views of the world come from a position of having nothing rather than having everything. The film paint the American dream as being a very real object for those in developing nations around the world.

In spite of the trailer’s appearance of mawkish and weepie sentimentality, The Good Lie has done surprisingly well with critics, which could bolster the film’s chances with audiences when it goes wide. It will need bountiful box office support to enter the Oscar contest outside of Witherspoon’s performance, but with this and Inherent Vice on deck, it could bolster her chances of her more Oscar-friendly turn in Wild later this year and mark her first entry into the Oscar conversation since her win for Walk the Line nine years ago.

Men, Women & Children

Unlike Fincher or Russell, some directors burst onto the Oscar scene so suddenly that their eventual plummet into Oscar Obscurity is almost a guarantee. Jason Reitman has the dubious distinction of being just such a director.

His first feature film, Thank You for Smoking was loved by critics and became something of an underground indie hit. It was his second film, Juno with the whip-smart screenplay by fellow Oscar disappearing act Diablo Cody, that put him on the map. It may have only nabbed four nominations, but Juno‘s Best Picture appearance marked the rise of Reitman, son of Hollywood legend Ivan Reitman. It could certainly have been a fluke, but his third film proved to be even more popular.

Up in the Air was nominated in six top categories including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and three acting nominations. The film toyed briefly with a lead in the Oscar race, but ultimately lost out to The Hurt Locker. It became clear that the wunderkind Reitman would be around for some time. Yet, in Hollywood, every sudden rise to success can be met by an equally quick fall. His fourth film, Young Adult was thought to be a surefire contender, especially for the performance of previous Oscar winner Charlize Theron, but critics were largely indifferent to the film and Oscar followed suit and ignored the film altogether.

His first major stumbling block in the road to Oscar was a complete no-show. Reitman’s attempt to return to the arrested development genre his Juno became exemplary of, was a complete bust. His fifth film, Labor Day was such a disappointment with critics that it got a briefly Oscar-qualifying run before being held back into the next year for wide release, at which audiences completely ignored it.

Men, Women & Children is another attempt by Reitman to tackle a family drama that pits his characters against the uncaring, dismal world of social networking. While the first trailer was an inventive affair, the second suggested a film that wasn’t necessarily more of the same, but was certainly less original than it might have otherwise appeared. Audiences haven’t responded and the critics have put it in the rubbish bin, marking yet another potential Oscar nominee as a complete failure. Will Reitman ever make it back into the Academy’s good graces? He might need to step back before he falls into the same trap of mediocrity his father ultimately reveled in.