via James A. Molnar
Yes, there seems to be a fast-growing gap that is further differentiating these two institutions. Once upon a time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored the best that Hollywood had to offer. Sure, there was the occasional inclusion of independent and international films that broke new ground, but for the most part, the films that took home Oscars were high-quality, expensive-looking projects with broad appeal, ideally distributed by one of the major Hollywood studios.
The new Academy is no longer a reflection of that; rather, the Oscars have become more of a showcase for film festival darlings with international acclaim. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this change is a better reflection of the global film industry, and it gives audiences a chance to hear about smaller films through the larger platform of awards season. Still, both Hollywood and the Academy need to face the fact that the movies the Academy honors are simply not the ones Hollywood produces anymore. Hollywood, therefore, cannot take credit for Anora’s big sweep last Sunday. After all, it’s not their film.
When Exactly Did This Change Start?
Several pivotal changes to Academy rules allowed for different kinds of films to gain recognition. After the 2009 ceremony, in which big-budget films like The Dark Knight and Wall-E were denied Best Picture nominations, the Academy announced its decision to expand the nominees in its top category from five films to ten (in the ensuing years, they would amend the rule to having between five and ten slots and then subsequently back to ten).
On the surface, the purpose for this change was to allow for films that don’t usually get recognized to have a fair shot, but in 2009, the types of films Academy board members were thinking about were big-budget superhero and animated films—not lower-budget indies. What happened instead was the increased number of nominees for the Best Picture category left the potential for smaller films to get nominated as well. Sure, in the immediate aftermath of the change, Pixar got a Best Picture nomination for Up, but Sundance indie hit An Education also managed to sneak in the top 10.
Several critics have taken issue with the expanded field, and I can’t help but agree. To me, it always seemed like a cheap solution to the more difficult problem of changing voters’ perceptions of what an “awards film” is. Still, it’s hard to deny that some inspired nominations have happened since the expansion that otherwise may not have occurred, like 2021’s Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Japanese-language meditation on grief, or this year’s The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s outrageous body-horror satire.
The Preferential Ballot and Expanded Membership
In 2009, the Academy also introduced the preferential ballot in the Best Picture category. Now, voting members were required to rank the nominees from 1 to 10 in order of preference. This ultimately meant that the “most liked” films (i.e. films that got the most #1 and #2 votes) were more likely to fare well. Meanwhile, films that suffered from backlash or divisiveness on the campaign trail might have trouble, even if they earned frontrunner status early on in the race (La La Land, anyone?).
Of course, there was also the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, which led to the continued expansion of the Academy’s membership. This development allowed for greater inclusive measures that might have boosted the awards chances for films like Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight and Daniels' Everything Everywhere All At Once. It also made the membership far more international.
The inclusion of more international members inadvertently boosted the awards impact of films programmed at major international film festivals like Cannes and Venice earlier in the year. Before Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won Best Picture at the 2020 Oscars ceremony, it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. In fact, four out of the five previous winners of the Palme d’Or all received Best Picture nominations, which leads us to Anora.
How Anora Benefited From These Changes
Although Sean Baker is an American independent filmmaker, Anora burst onto the awards scene not because it was a home-grown Hollywood effort. Instead, it first premiered abroad last May at Cannes, where it was awarded that same predictive top prize. Anora, therefore, highly benefited from having international appeal, the kind that does not usually warm up to big Hollywood movies like Wicked and Dune: Part Two.
Prior to many of these structural changes to the Academy’s membership and voting policies, crowd-pleasing, largely well-reviewed box-office hits like Wicked would be shoo-ins for Best Picture. But that was back in the day when the priorities and tastes of Hollywood and the Academy were far more similar than they are now.
Wicked still earned 10 nominations, but its only two wins were in craft categories. Hollywood may want to promote the heck out of Wicked—that opening performance with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande certainly was meant to appeal to the masses. However, when it comes to the actual wins, voting members of the Academy had a different agenda. They wanted to recognize the smaller film, the one that does not appeal to the masses, but that perhaps the masses should know about.
Disney’s Bob Iger was in the audience last Sunday. Although the founder of his company was once an Academy darling, Iger is decidedly not. Perhaps Iger should consider developing more mid-to-low budget films if he wants to win an Oscar, but that does not seem to be a priority for him or for any of the top Hollywood studio heads. Despite the fact that once upon a time, he would have been the most awarded person in that room, Iger seems to be too focused on projects like his doomed $200+ million remake of Snow White. Instead, it was the independent filmmaker whose movie cost just $6 million who walked away with all the accolades. If that’s not a sign that Hollywood and the Academy are walking different paths, I don’t know what is.