As Oscar time gets closer, we're all looking at the nominees and making our guesses as to who's gonna win what. (Don't worry: I'll post predictions in plenty of time to help you fill out your office pool entry!) And the Best Picture category this year may be the most interesting: there's no clear front-runner, no obvious favorite, and the slate of nominees is, perhaps, the most evenly matched in a long while. Each of these five very different films -- alphabetically, Babel, The Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen -- has plenty of precedent among the Best Picture winners of the past, too.

If you're talking about Babel, for instance, you'll find lots of movies about culture clash in Oscar's past ... and you'll probably enjoy checking out these films while we wait for the ceremony:

Grand Hotel (1932): The tension is relatively benign, as the denizens of an elegant Berlin hotel intermingle in unlikely ways, but the conflicting desires of the varied characters mirror a larger battle between the classes and genders happening in the wider society.

Around the World in 80 Days (1956): A travelogue that showed off the exoticism of distant lands in the era before the Discovery Channel and cheap cruises, this is a dated film to our more sophisticated eyes today, but it shows off a view of the world and of other peoples that is more enthusiastic and less jaded than our own today.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): The clash of cultures affects even those who desperately want to fit in, as T.E. Lawrence learned during his sojourn to the Middle East. And David Lean's stunning direction lends an eerie alienness to Lawrence's experience of a faraway place.

Schindler's List (1997): Genocide is the ultimate culture clash, and here it is depicted in, literally, shades of black and white, as incomprehensibly cold evil strikes with such vicious cruelty that even in its midst, its victims are unable to imagine its boundless depths.

Gladiator (2000): Sometimes culture clash occurs without us having to visit another country, when our own culture changes beyond our means to adapt. Russell Crowe's Roman general becomes a stranger in his own land when the mores and morals of his people shift away from those he holds dear.

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