Best Of The Oscars Cocktail Buffet

Last year, our Oscar menu used the best picture nominees as jumping-off points for deliciously themed food -- whether puns of movie titles or directly related to the movie's scenes.

This year, we're skipping the uncertainty of cooking for mere nominees and creating a "best of" buffet that features finger food from movies that have taken home the golden statuette in the past. In the interest of fun, this buffet is more over-the-top than our usual, manageable offerings. Feel free to simplify the menu, highlighting only your favorite dishes (or movies).

Arrange your Oscar-buffet with little flags so guests know what movie they relate to (we like these gumdrop flags for identification purposes). Or, make 'em guess.

Then fill up your plates with vintage movie-inspired food, then turn on the TV, get settled and come back to 2012 to toast this year's winners.

--Cara Eisenpress is the author of In the Small Kitchen and runs the website Big Girls, Small Kitchen.