Back to Five? Back to Reality. (On the Best Picture Problem)
Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 2:13PM 
Back from a fantasy, yes...
By now you have read the rumor that the Academy is considering going back to only five Best Picture nominees per year. I've been amused by the headlines about this as they're extremely telling before you even get to the editorials. Consider Awards Daily's jaded / defeated "As They've Always Wanted" (Sasha likes the expanded field) or In Contention's even angrier / more insulting "Wants to Go Backward" (Gregory also likes the expanded field). Oscar bloggers have, for the most part, enjoyed the expansion because it gave us more to write about.
I never personally liked it. Oh sure it was fun the first couple of years in the way sudden upheavals in any tradition can feel thrilling in either an adventure film or horror film way. It also prompted fun guessing games about what might have been nominated in years past. But as a lover of Oscar history who enjoys comparing all eras too each other in out-of-time conversation, it was ultra-disruptive. How to compare years with 5 versus years with 8 versus 9 versus 10? Pick a number and stick with it. I understand that people have enjoyed the diversity of genres that the expanded field brought us but that only worked the first two years. [Lots more...]
After that the publicists / studios acclimated to the new system and went back to putting their efforts and money into pushing the films they thought of as "Oscar Bait." And now the field of 10, or 9 or 8 looks pretty much exactly like the fields of 5 from days of yore.
2011 gets my vote for most difficult year to figure what it would have been like under old system
• 2009 Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, Up in the Air (if only five)
plus: A Serious Man, An Education, District 9, The Blind Side, Up
• 2010 Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The King's Speech, The Social Network (if only five?)
plus: 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone
• 2011 The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris (if only five? really tough year to call)
plus: Extremely Loud, The Tree of Life, Moneyball, War Horse
• 2012 Argo, Les Miz, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook (if only five? another tough year to say)
plus: Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty
• 2013 American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Wolf of Wall Street (if only 5? but maybe not. Capt Phillips had DGA and Philomena & Nebraska acting support)
plus: Captain Phillips, Philomena, Her, Nebraska
• 2014 American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game (if only 5? but Whiplash might have surprised knocking one of these out)
plus: Selma, Theory of Everything, Whiplash
It's a very tough perception problem that I'm not sure anyone fully knows how to address, least of all Oscar bloggers who consistently if perhaps unintentionally reinforce 'looks good on paper' notions all year long which only adds to the problem. I'm not blameless either though I try to use my own wishful thinking to promote open minded reception of films that don't seem typical but are nonetheless deserving of awards attention. Like Pride, The Babadook, Captain America Winter Soldier or Under the Skin this past year to name a few examples.
I understand the passion behind the "this is terrible" arguments but frankly some of the assumptions are unsupported by Oscar history. Gregory contends that this will only further acerbate their diversity problem but that's not true. The only field that is expanded is Best Picture. The acting races have remained the same and there were years as far back as the 70s and 80s with far more diversity than we saw this past year, ethnically speaking. I buy Mark Harris's argument a few years back that statistically the wider Best Picture field has actually resulted in LESS films receiving nominations overall. Now, if you're not fighting for a Best Picture slot you're just basically not in the race. Less screeners seem to be being watched.
I dont know what the solution is but one thing that definitely needs to be addressed is how few pictures the voting members are actually seeing. It's alarming time and again at awards-courting events to speak to members who haven't seen buzzy films. Some people in the past have wondered why select critics haven't been invited to join the Academy (there are critics within the Tony voting ranks for example) but I'd argue that's not a good solution either since critics have shown in their annual awards that they don't have much more imagination than Oscar voters in terms of what is "Oscar Worthy".
What's more we've already seen the damage in stability that can be done when they race for correctives. If the expansion changed because of The Dark Knight (2008 - I'm far more upset about WALL•E missing that year) why change the whole system again just because Selma had some campaign problems in December/January. Shouldn't an 87 year old institution be less excitable when things go wrong in one particular season?
Perhaps it's time for a smaller faction -- I know this sounds counterintuitive -- within AMPAS to serve as a nominating committee much the way same way the Executive Committee of the Foreign Language Film category has vastly improved that field each year with "saves" of high quality films that didnt' receive enough votes in the first round. Or even just an Executive Committee who could do press releases and email blasts and coordinated events quarterly -- anything to expand the "what you should watch" and get members watching contenders all year round.
And before anyone says it, hear this: I don't buy the argument that Academy members don't have time to watch their screeners because they're working. If people -- and Academy voters are just people like you and I with busy lives and jobs -- have time to binge watch 13 hours of their favorite Netflix series they have time to watch a 2 hour more here and there. If you watch movies all year round, even as few as one a week, the screener holiday crunch wouldn't be so overwhelming. Chances are you'd already have key favorites that you planned on voting for before the publicists even got to you.
Better viewing habits may be the only way to expand the aesthetic palette and increase diversity of genre and actors considered each year.
Reader Comments (79)
I used to be in the Five Films camp but reading through this has convinced me they should keep the expanded field, but do a lot of what people like LadyEdith are proposing: get rid of the dead weight academy members, and most especially tighten up the rules and deadlines for nomination eligibility. My other suggestion is that they push the damn show further back - at least give us until March - so we have an easier time of actually seeing the nominees. Also agree that the proliferation of awards shows has really drained away much of the old Oscar excitement.
I don't know if they would ever consider it, but a change in the eligibility period--from the current Jan 1 to Dec 31 for April 1 to Mar 31 which would shift the focus off Christmas. Christmas is always going to have Hobbits, Witches and Moppets juggling for theaters and many of the smaller films--your Cakes, Alices and Most Violent Years struggling to find a spot to shoehorn in. Hold the ceremony in May. Leave the niche films for what is now the cinematic wasteland of Jan and Feb. They might even find everyone makes more money.
But they have to tighten the rules re screeners, release dates (at least within 6 weeks of a qualifying run) and do something about the nomination process.
From what I am hearing, I would expect different producers for next years event as well.
Nathaniel, you're right that the films nominated for BP in the past few years have been more and more similar to the "typical" BP nominees from the days of the five-wide field, but looking at those lists of the expanded nominees, I think it's because the films that surprised in the earliest years of the expansion haven't seen equivalents in the years since.
There hasn't been an original sci-fi allegory that got the praise and box office that District 9 got. There hasn't been a universally affecting animated film like Toy Story 3. There hasn't been a uniquely beautiful meditation on the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything from a highly respected American auteur like The Tree of Life. Or a psychosexual high art/camp hybrid like Black Swan. Or a mind-bending sci-fi thriller that grabbed hold of everyone's imagination like Inception (2010 alone is all the proof one needs that the expanded field is a good thing). Each of these were causes célèbres in many different ways in their years, and there just hasn't been anything like them since. Because outside of Sundance hits (The Kids..., Winter's Bone, Beasts, Whiplash), if you're outside Oscar's wheelhouse, you need big bank AND critical consensus to get his attention (unless you're a franchise film, in which case, you won't get anywhere beyond the tech categories). There hasn't been a sci-fi, horror, thriller, animated, or foreign film that has commanded that kind of attention in recent years. The only ones that have really come close were Gone Girl (a prestige film in its own right) and The Conjuring (and MAYBE Looper), but I don't think the latter even had a campaign. And none of this is the Academy's fault. The films (and the support for them) just haven't been there.
And let's be honest: Do we really think that in a world with the five-wide field, we get BOTH Haneke and Zeitlin in Best Director in 2012?
denny, please don't mention the 2012 race for Best Director. That Bigelow snub was wrong wrong WRONG.
I prefer the expanded field. With a preferential ballot, a field of 5 means a quota of 17% of votes while a field of 10 is 9% (which the academy adjusted to10%) so it favors the loved-by-a-small number over the liked-by-many. This is more interesting to me and gives lesser known films a better chance.
I wonder if they could change the one-member=one-vote. Maybe a committee who can prove they have seen a given number of films could have additional vote(s).
There have been plenty of diversity in the roster beyond the usual "Oscar Bait" to validate keeping the expansion as is. I don't agree with going back to five at all. You wouldn't have had some gems of BP nominees without the expansion. It hasn't all been business as usual these past couple years with only Oscar bait in the running. Were films like "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Hunger Games," "Planet of the Apes," etc. ever going to be BP nominees? NOPE. They didn't even go for "Harry Potter" once! It's a clear fallacy to believe that Academy tastes are going to change overnight. The membership has to be evolved, period. But in the meantime, should films like "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Winter's Bone," and "Amour" suffer as a result? Of course not. And the term "Oscar prestige" is so dubious I really can't right now.
Vaus: Let's say, "For every 30 eligible films you can prove you've seen, you get 1 vote. If you prove that you went out and saw a well reviewed (80+% RT Score) but ineligible film (like The Babadook) even if you don't technically 'have to', you get 2 votes. Every ballot requires a different film on the #1 slot." (Oscar 2014 meant that if you saw everything eligible even if it was total garbage, you would have 10 #1 votes and going out for The Babadook after all that would give you 12.) as a balance rule. Honestly, that does do something good in putting a bit more power into the hands of those with voracious and wide tastes.
I don't believe for one second that the events with Selma had anything to do with this possible change. The Academy has been considering this since they moved to the "five to ten" system, or so it was rumored, and clearly, only five spots would have made it harder for Selma to get in.
Also, I don't think the "nominating committee" idea would fly at all. People threw a fit when they did it in Foreign Language, but it was do-able because it was a relatively minor category. Try to tell the Ernest Borgnines of the world that you're going to have some fancy-pants members "save worthy films" that he hates and you'd have an uprising.
Just had to add:
I'd actually like to keep the five to ten system, I think. I like seeing more films recognized and I think it does expand the Best Picture conversation if not the overall nominations (because I buy Harris's argument there too). Try to imagine Amour or Beasts of the Southern Wild or Her nominated under the old system. It would never have happened. And should another Up or Toy Story 3 or District 9 come up, I have no doubts that they could make the big dance. We simply haven't had animated or sci-fi films (other than Gravity, of course) in the conversation since 2010.
The one downfall is that the system was designed to award "better" film years with more nominees. I think there's zero correlation between the two. More good films means that publicists and studios have to choose which to promote, which serves to moderate what would have been more diverse balloting.
This is a great piece. I'm aligned with you, Nathaniel, in that the lack of films being seen will always be at the root of the problem. While I do love the two years we had a fixed ten BP list, let's all remember how quickly it got narrowed. That first year, other than the films that got nominated, the only other films really in contention for a spot were Nine and Star Trek. The following year, it was clear that it was The Town</I> that was the outsider in the fray that didn't end up making it.
I'm not attacking those films, but so many titles are released every year. In an organization as large as the Academy, why does it narrow so quickly/easily? They aren't watching/thinking about enough movies. Any issues about what they're nominating or not nominating kind of have to start there, don't they? Maybe the way we watch movies needs to change in terms of distribution and access. Unless its Ann Dowd footing the bill for herself, a lot of smaller productions can't afford to send screeners. Maybe links to their movies online with passwords that expire for Academy members? I don't know what the solution is. I do know that the number of Best Picture nominees is not going to solve the problem if they're not watching enough movies.
I wish more Academy members would take a cue from Steven Soderbergh. I know he's supposedly "retired" but come on. Dude works a lot. And he still manages to be a voracious movie watcher. Watch more movies, Academy. Please.
Just read Denny's post above and realized that we said similar things. Sorry about that. But bravo, Denny! I've read lots on other sites how animated and sci-fi films have been snubbed since they moved to the five-to-ten system and my response is always: what animated/sci-fi pics would you have wanted nominated in 2011-14? I get crickets. Meanwhile, unusual film archetypes (foreign, artfilm, the uber indie) have succeeded brilliantly.
I'm a very strong supporter of the expanded system. For various reasons, I believe that Whiplash, Boyhood and Grand Budapest (my three favorite films of the year) would not have even been considered serious contenders in a 5-picture field.
Boyhood was a tiny movie from a distributor that had never waged an Oscar campaign, Budapest was a quirky comedy released in March from a director who never managed to get any Oscar traction, and Whiplash was a Sundance movie without any star power.
In an expanded field, they have a chance at nominations, but in a filed of five, the Oscar bloggers and critics start to see their chances at a BP nomination as far more remote - so they ignore them in favor of bigger, more star-powered fare.
I realize people will disagree with me about Boyhood, but the only reason people started to see it as an Oscar nominee was because certain bloggers started to think, last summer and early fall, it had potential to sneak in at the #7 or #8 spot.
I am in the "back to five" camp... Just more prestigious and exciting! The 5 absolute best and not a list of greatest hits... Some of which are forgettable. And we can already guess the top 5 of the expanded filed anyway.
And I do not understand why some are happy with the expanded best pic and not use that same argument to expand all of the acting fields to ten as well....
Evan: Maybe Edgar Wright in 2013 over Philomena, but that doubles down on the bizarreness for a nomination. 1. It's a genre piece, which is already a hard sell for Oscar. 2. It's a movie that in some key ways ONLY makes sense taking place in Britain, particularly in regards to the characters aggressively taking issue with aesthetic homogeny. Philomena, An Education, Atonement, Gosford Park, The Full Monty, Secrets & Lies, Four Weddings and a Funeral. All of them could be set in America with really only minor changes.
I like the variable number. I'd expand the variable number to all the categories.
@Evan: Well, if it makes you feel any better, Ernest Borgnine is dead. I know, I'm a ray of sunshine, aren't I lol?
Go back to five - it's hard enough to find five truly worthy best pictures
Guys......critics see a zillion movies and STILL come up with (often) dull consensus choices. And those groups only have a few dozen members. And they probably, on the whole, have more eclectic tastes than Academy members. (Maybe? Actually that's debatable.)
"Best" movies chosen by popular vote are always going to be disappointing. No matter how movies get seen. If every single Academy member was forced to sit and watch "Under the Skin" before voting, would it really make a difference on nomination morning?
Five nominees, ten nominees, or whatever falls in between....more importantly, when will we ever know who won the Film Bitch Awards??
I'm in the "Keep It As It Is" group. While the more populist genres may have only benefited from the expanded field in its first two years (and I'm annoyed that more haven't in the years following), I think the expanded field continues to allow for some out of the box pics like "Her" to be in the mix. Also, I just think there's more than five worthy films in a year.
KT- ha, I know. It's just that when I think of crotchety Academy members, I always return to he who was sickened by the idea of Brokeback Mountain.
Josh R -- good point. I shall work on them today.
5 is the warmest number.
Brilliant!
I posted this on Awards Daily a few weeks ago and felt it was appropriate to share again...
Personally, I’d be fine with 5 or 10 nominees, but the current system is just awful. The expansion overall has been effective in terms of re-stimulating interest in the awards, as well as encouraging voters to consider a wider array of films. It’s pretty awesome that District 9, A Serious Man, Up, Toy Story 3, Winter’s Bone, Her and Whiplash are all best picture nominees – which likely wouldn't be the case under the old format. I thought the 10-nominee system was working fine those first couple years (well, except for The Blind Side, but at least it was a genuine hit with audiences) my guess is that the Academy received enough complaints about the awards being “watered down” and decided to make a change. I believe the basic intent of the current best picture system is to get a higher number of nominees in a strong year, and less nominees in a weak year. The problem is that things don’t necessarily play out as such. The number of nominees is not so much determined by the quality of the year in cinema per se, it’s determined by the distribution of votes. In theory, one year could have 9 or 10 beloved films that stand out and become best picture nominees. While another year could have 15 or 20 beloved films, but with each vying for a piece of the pie, only 5 or 6 make the cut.
We all have our disagreements with the Academy’s selections from time to time, but part of the beauty of the Oscars is that they serve as a tangible reference point, a gold standard if you will. For 60+ years, being a best picture Oscar nominee meant being chosen by the Academy as one of the year’s five best. I think because the number of nominees is no longer a constant, some of that merit I just mentioned does get diluted – more so than the awards being diluted by simply having a larger field (on a personal level as a movie fan, I have a tough time squeezing all my favorites into a top 10, which should be the case for most true lovers of cinema). The current system also sends a kind of demeaning message to movies that don’t make the cut. In the past, if your movie didn't make it in, it was because 5 other movies got more votes – plain and simple. But now, unless there’s 10 nominees, it comes across like the Academy saying “there was an extra spot available, but your movie just wasn't good enough”. That’s basically what they said to Drive, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, A Separation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Before Midnight, Inside Llewyn Davis, Foxcatcher, Gone Girl and Nightcrawler.
If anything, over the past three years, the Academy has proven that this expanded line-up of films works. Yes, there were those years of "The Blind Side" and "Extremely Loud" (the latter of which I actually really liked...I know...eye rolls have begun by those reading this), but the past three Oscar seasons yielded really solid line-ups. While some of us may not like all the choices -- I DESPISED "American Hustle" -- the field has been filled with quite a lot of quality. Maybe it's just because a little film like Whiplash (my favorite of the nominated films this year) got a little more recognition than it probably would've otherwise, but if anything, the past three years have proven this system works.
everyone -- i'm not so sure the best picture lineups would work out like everyone is saying. for 60 plus years. best director rarely lined up with best picture 5/5 so it's possible WHIPLASh was one of the five this past year (given how well it ended up doing - 3 wins)
Before the Academy expanded the Best Picture category, I had a realization that the films that got nominated usually stuck to a pretty reliable formula:
1. The Miramax/Weinstein movie - the easiest one to define. As much as anything else, these were nominated due to the marketing money and muscle of Harvey Weinstein. Recent-ish examples: Chocolat, In the Bedroom, Chicago, Gangs of New York, Master and Commander, Finding Neverland, The Queen, There Will Be Blood, The Reader.
2. The critical favorite - even if this isn't the critical champ of the year, it's a movie that's distinguished itself with overwhelmingly positive press. Established, Oscar-friendly director a plus, but not necessary. Recent-ish examples: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Gosford Park, The Pianist, Lost in Translation, Sideways, Brokeback Mountain, Letters From Iwo Jima, No Country For Old Men, Milk.
3. The big-ish movie - most of the time, it's a big-studio genre hit, but not always. If not, it'll be some expansive, years-encompassing epic, most likely based on an acclaimed literary work or a true-life series of events. Recent-ish examples: Gladiator, Lord of the Rings (all three), The Aviator, Munich, The Departed, Atonement, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
4. The actors' movie - with the acting branch comprising so much of the Academy, there's a tendency to recognize movies with lots of opportunities to give juicy performances. In other words, the kind of movies in the actors in the Academy wish they could've been cast. Recent-ish examples: Traffic, A Beautiful Mind, The Hours, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, Babel, Michael Clayton, Frost/Nixon.
5. The "heart" movie - the most amorphous category, but usually encompasses one or more of the following: (a) inspirational, (b) tear-jerking, (c) feel-good, and (d) toe-tapping. More recently, these have tended to be movies that have done well at TIFF. Recent-ish examples: Erin Brockovich, Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Seabiscuit, Ray, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire.
By that rationale, here's what I'm thinking the nominees would've been since 2009:
2009
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Avatar
4. Up in the Air
5. Precious
2010
1. The King's Speech
2. Black Swan
3. Inception
4. The Social Network
5. The Fighter
2011
1. The Artist
2. Midnight in Paris
3. Hugo
4. The Descendants
5. The Help
I don't think this is a tough year to call at all, unless somehow TREE OF LIFE had enough support to edge out MIDNIGHT in the critical fave department. But I doubt it.
2012
1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. Argo
3. Life of Pi
4. Lincoln
5. Les Miserables
The other possibility I considered was ARGO as the "heart" movie (it was runner-up for the TIFF Audience Award which was won by SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) and ZERO DARK THIRTY as the critical fave.
2013
1. Philomena
2. 12 Years a Slave
3. Gravity
4. American Hustle
5. Dallas Buyers Club
This seems the most tenuous of the years I'm predicted, mostly because of PHILOMENA. If that movie didn't make the cut- and it very well may not have- slot in NEBRASKA.
2014
1. The Imitation Game
2. Boyhood
3. American Sniper
4. Birdman
5. The Theory of Everything
Sorry, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Only room for one quirky critical favorite.
They should revert to 5 Best Picture nominees - for consistency.
The past few years we've seen 10, 9 and now 8 Best Picture nominees. What next? 6???
I think American Sniper and Selma would have been nominated if there were just 5 nominees this year. One being a box office success and the other a 'educational' film.
The Academy have tinkered with other categories like Foreign Language, Documentary feature and Original Song - and there have been major stuff ups there too.
They won't be able to satisfy everyone.
Return to 5 and expand the Make-up/hair category to 5 as well.
Reintroduce the Song Score/Adaptation category - surely Begin Again, Beyond the Lights, Last 5 years, Muppets most wanted could have got extra noms for their song scores this year?
Introduce a stunt choreography award and in honour of documentary narrators and animation voice actors - a Best Voice Acting/Narrating category.