A shifting paradigm and Oscars retrospective: 8 powerful takeaways and lessons
Now that the dust has settled on Oscars 95, what can we learn to help us next year?
#1 The old rules are broken
You can win Best Picture with an early release. You can win without premiering at a major non-U.S. festival. You can win without a Director or Editing nomination.
The traditional paradigm is shifting, because…
#2 Momentum is everything
Statistics can provide a handy indication of what is likely to happen, but over recent years in particular, records are being regularly broken, because the passion (especially late passion) for certain films/individuals completely wipes out historical expectations.
#3 Proximity of momentum is everything
This year, the SAGs were the biggest award closest to the Oscar voting period, and all four individual SAG winners matched the Oscar winners.
Last year, the Critics Choice Awards were just before Oscar voting, and the PGAs were during Oscar voting. CODA won PGA, and all four CC acting winners matched up with the Oscars.
The year before that, the BAFTAs were closest to Oscar voting, and the Oscars went 8/8 for Pic/Dir/Acting/Writing with the BAFTAs (including two major upsets.)
Recency bias is real.
Winner of seven Oscars from eleven nominations: Everything Everywhere All at Once dominated the 95th Academy Awards. Picture courtesy of Newsweek, Jeff Kravitz Filmmagic
#4 You can’t manufacture momentum
So many pictures this year, tagged as typical Oscar bait, and trotted out via typical Oscar season ways and means, went AWOL. But, as pointed out by Gold Derby’s Joyce Eng in her Oscars debrief, the organic successes, Everything Everywhere All at Once and All Quiet on the Western Front, were the big winners.
Everything Everywhere All at Once was The Little Engine That Could, slowly but surely chugging along for twelve straight months, exponentially racking up dollars and popularity.
And All Quiet on the Western Front wasn’t even a consideration (for Netflix, for critics, for pundits, for anybody) until it too started to gradually build popularity, until both became all-consuming monoliths of the awards season.
#5 Beware the frontrunner
Sometimes a film, like Nomadland, can go all the way, outright favourite from its September Venice premiere to the Oscars in April. But it’s become increasingly rare.
Even being the Best Picture favourite on game day only results in a 50% success rate over the past ten years.
#6 Passion > respect
All the auteur passion projects of late – The Irishman, Mank, Belfast, The Fabelmans, Bardo – missed big.
The Academy is happy to respect these films, by showering them with nominations, but stops short when rewarding them. It’s all about which films garner the most passion.
Objectivity is way out, subjectivity is way in.
#7 Reward the little people
Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone made a great point during the season, about the recent trend of Best Picture winners all featuring lower-class characters: Moonlight, Shape of Water, Green Book, Parasite, Nomadland, CODA, Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Liberal guilt? Wider relatability? Either way, it could help narrow our search for next year’s bolter.
#8 One favourite is unbeatable
And to finish, one very interesting, very specific angle: the game day favourite for Supporting Actress has now won fifteen years in a row. Staggering, especially for a category (supposedly) notorious for crazy upsets.
A look ahead at the 2024 Oscars
So does any upcoming film tick all those boxes for next year? Is it possible to predict an organic success before it hits the zeitgeist? Can we identify the potential before the actual? Sportsbet currently has Past Lives as its second favourite. Sundance premiere, immigrant story, 95 Metacritic score, and A24 is distributing! A perfect storm, perhaps?