The Los Angeles Film Critics, in only their second year, started off awards season with another tie. Just as they had done with their first awards the previous year, they split Best Picture honors between two films, the acerbic Network and the feel-good Rocky.

The National Board of Review, New York Film Critics and National society f Film Critics all gave their awards to the fact-based All the President’s Men. Would Oscar go the way of the majority, or like the year before, go for one of the L.A. co-winners?

The four groups rallied behind three different directors. The L.A. group chose Sidney Lumet for Network, while the N.Y. group and the NBR chose Alana J. Pakula for All the President’s Men. The National Society went with Martin Scorsese for Taxi Driver.

The Golden Globes shut Taxi Driver out of their Best Picture – Drama race. Their nominations went to All the President’s Men; Bound for Glory; Network; Rocky and Voyage of the Damned with Rocky winning.

The Globes also ignored Scorsese in their Best Director nominations, choosing to go with Bound for Glory’s Hal Ashby; Rocky’s John G. Avildsen and Marathon Man’s John Schlesinger in addition to Pakula and Lumet. The Directors’ Guild concurred with Avildsen, Pakula and Lumet, adding Scorsese and Italy’s Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties.

The Academy nominated All the President’s Men; Bound for Glory; Network; Rocky and Taxi Driver for Best Picture and Avildsen, Pakula, Lumet and Wertmuller for Best Director, but choosing Ingmar Bergman for Face to Face over Scorsese.

What, though, would have been the other five nominees had Oscar gone to a ten Best Picture slate?

Certainly the popular Seven Beauties which earned the first Best Director nomination for a woman with both the DGA and Oscar would have been among them. Beyond that it’s anybody’s guess so I’ll start guessing.

Though foreign films had still been popular, none of them beyond Seven Beauties, neither Face to Face, nor Cousin, Cousine or Small Change seemed to have the necessary traction. The same goes for Globes favorite Voyage of the Damned, which seemed like a rehash of Ship of Fools from the previous decade.

The popular Marathon Man had only one nomination but was critically and commercially popular enough to have been among the remaining four. The same goes for The Omen, which emerged with only two nominations and one win.

Carrie had only two nominations but was another critical and popular hit with enough support to have been added to the list.

Let’s give the last slot to The Shootist which, like Marathon Man, had only one other nomination, but which like Maraton Man; The Omen and Carrie was certainly strong enough to be nominated in a year in which L.A. favorites Network and Rocky dominated.

In the end Network won four of its ten nominations for Best Actor (Peter Finch); Actress (Faye Dunaway); Supporting Actress (Beatrice Straight) and Original Screenplay while Rocky won three of its ten for Best Picture; Director and Editing.