“12 Years A Slave” has come with a bang, and is receiving rave reviews online. Indeed, Vulture movies editor Kyle Buchanan has already awarded “12 Years A Slave” this year’s Best Picture trophy in his review. Already, the film has won the top award at the Toronto Film Festival. “Suspend the betting, close the books and notify the engraver,” wrote Kyle Buchanan after the film’s first Toronto screening, on Sept. 7. “I’ve just seen what will surely be this year’s Best Picture winner.”

However, in September Steve Pond, The Wrap’s  Awards expert, thought that “12 Years A Slave” still had a long way to go because “the Oscar race is a marathon, not a sprint.”

“It will likely win a number of critics’ awards, and it will be impossible for any serious voter to ignore when Oscar ballots become available in December. But does that make it an automatic winner? Not now. Not yet.” Says Steve Pond.  There are certainly valid points for and against the “12 Years A Slave” winning the grand trophy, but until then, we are better off concentration on the content of the masterpiece.

Well, it’s now mid November and the film seems more like a shoo-in for The Academy’s Best Picture Award, but of course we have to wait and see.

“12 Years A Slave” has been heralded as very emotional and a true picture of what it was like to be a slave in pre-civil war America. The film features Chiwetel Ejiofor acting as a free black man from New York who gets abducted and sold into slavery. The story, which moved Oprah Winfrey into tears while discussing it, is based on a true story of a man named Solomon Northup. Northup compiled his autobiography which was published in 1853, although many thought that it was fiction.

12 Years a Slave was released in the US on October 13th and has been called a must-see by critics.

(image via Wikipedia)