The Mad Six
Monday, February 29, 2016 at 8:06AM Glenn here helping out with the post-ceremony rush. The highlight of last night’s Oscars was surely the six wins for Mad Max: Fury Road. That haul solidified its place as not just one of the most successful Oscar titles of all time, but no doubt the strangest, too.
We may all say that most people were predicting at least four of five of those, but the path to those six wins has been rather extraordinary in the truest definition of that word. Who among us a year ago truly could have predicted that we would be here a year later celebrating six Oscars to a movie about a renegade road warrior, an amputee heroine, and a group of sex slaves rising up against an evil warlord in a post-apocalyptic future with the aide of a gang of elderly motorcycle ladies? While we can be disappointed – very disappointed – that they didn’t add a seventh for George Miller’s direction, any movie winning six golden statues is not only a rarity, but a moment to be extremely proud of so hats off to the team behind Max. It won as many awards as the last two best picture winners combined and it doubled the amount of awards of the next highest winner (The Revenant) on its big night. You done good, Max! May more films like you spring forth from your imposing shadow.
Mad Max: Fury Road joins some fine company, with only 26 films having ever won more awards. 26 over 88 years ! More impressive still, is that Miller’s post-apocalyptic action spectacle is a member of an even smaller collective of only five films to have won half a dozen golden statues without a Best Picture prize to go with them. It’s an interesting quintet to say the least.
The five classics after the jump...
Cabaret (1972)
WON – director, actress, supporting actor, editing, cinematography, art direction, sound, adapted score.
NOMINATED – picture, adapted screenplay
The granddaddy of films that won big, but failed at the final hurdle is perhaps a film that it is very hard to feel sorry for. As if simply winning eight wasn’t enough, it lost the top prize to none other than The Godfather, a film hailed by many as one of few greatest films of all time, which won only three. You or I may go with Bob Fosse’s musical as the better film, but I’m kind of glad they didn’t – can you imagine the incessant dude complaining about Coppola’s film losing to one of those damn musicals? Hard to think anybody seeing those eight wins and dismissing it just because it missed best picture. Those eight speak volumes.
Gravity (2013)
WON – director, editing, cinematography, original music, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects
NOMINATED – picture, actress, production design
In all the hubbub around this year’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy, a lot of people pointed to 12 Years a Slave's win as proof that there isn’t a significant problem within the Academy. But it’s perhaps worth questioning why a period film – ostensibly the kind that sweeps technical categories while something smaller wins best picture – couldn’t even beat the likes of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby to a costume or production design award, only taking home three statues. Was its best picture win a moment of duty calling after all? Still, when it comes to Gravity, it’s hard to deny what attracted so many votes in the tech categories, not least of which was Emmanuel Lubezi's cinematography which starting the ball rolling on his incredible hat trick of three consecutive cinematography Oscars.
Star Wars (1977)
WON – editing, original score, art direction, costume, sound, visual effects, sound effects (special achievement)
NOMINATED – picture, director, original screenplay, supporting actor
Winner of six awards, plus a special seventh for Ben Burtt’s sound effects (now what we know as sound editing, a special achievement Oscar that Star Wars shared with Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Star Wars sort of feels like the prototype of films that people talk about when they talk about losing best picture due to perceived genre bias. What a lot of people seem to forget is that it was nominated in the same year as Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and would we really take that film’s statue away? Nearly 40 years later and The Force Awakens lost all but one of its five nominations to Mad Max: Fury Road, a film it shares this unique place in history list-making with.
A Place in the Sun (1951)
WON – director, screenplay, editing, cinematography (b+w), costume (b+w), music
NOMINATED – picture, actor, actress
No doubt enhanced by being from a time when many categories had colour as well as black and white subs, George Stevens’ divine drama A Place in the Sun feels like an oddity among the list. Still, it’s wonderful to see a film such as this being forced into people statistics so I’m not going to complain. 1951’s big winner, An American in Paris, also won six although its arguable as to whether either ought to have won when A Streetcar Named Desire was right there (it won four).
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
WON - editing, costume, production design, makeup and hairstyling, sound mixing, sound editing
NOMINATED - picture, director, cinematography, visual effects
How close George Miller's movie came to wins in the rest of its categories will remain forever unknown, but hopefully it has helped open a door - even it it's just slightly ajar - for other films with its gonzo genre-appeal to be taken more seriously by the Academy. Hopefully it will inspire studios to mount future campaigns that may have previously been deemed too risky to invest in. And I have no doubt whatsoever that it's legacy will last far beyond mere statistics. And as for the speeches? Don't you quite like knowing that many of the people that helped make such a bonkers movie are themselves rather nutty? It's rather fitting.
For reals though.
Ain't that the truth.
Reader Comments (19)
Spotlight was not my favorite movie of the year, but it's win redirects any possible next-morning headlines away from The Revenant and to the huge trophy count for my actual favorite movie of the year: Mad Max. AND as amazed/surprised as I was to see Ex Machina take FX, this 6 could easily have been a 7.
Good work, guys. Now, if only I could stay home and watch Cabaret all day.
When MGM's An American in Paris beat A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun, the company took out an ad showing Leo the Lion looking apologetically at the statuette and saying "Honestly, I was just standing In the Sun waiting for A Streetcar". That was a nice gesture. However, the Academy did not learn, and the next year they gave the gold to The Greatest Show on Earth over The Quiet Man and High Noon!
Worthy films all. Cabaret won best supporting actor for Joel Grey not supporting actress.
"What a lot of people seem to forget is that it (Star Wars) was nominated in the same year as Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and would we really take that film’s statue away?"
Oh lord, go check out the IMDB comments sometime on Annie Hall. Hoards of angry fanboys would happily snatch that BP Oscar away and put it into Lucas's hands in a heartbeat.
This is a beautiful beautiful group
The wins that Mad Max racked up were the high point of the evening for me, it was a nice victory for a film that had both style and substance. (unlike The Revenant)
I'm really happy all those Aussies got to thank George Miller and show how diverse that cast and crew was. Being in that group of 5 is a very worthy achievement, and is icing on the cake.
Inarritu was a bit of a poor sport, decidedly displeased and NOT clapping for Jenny Bevan.
Rob -- but really... we can't take IMDB fanboys seriously. a lot of people are perfectly happy with ANNIE HALL having won. at least they're both iconic pictures and only 1 can win each year.
Glenn -- this is such a great topic. thanks for putting this in context. everyone knows i'm not a huge GRAVITY fan but it's really hard to argue against this being an insanely high quality quintet of films to associate oneself with.
Nathaniel: seriously. I largely stopped going onto the comments on IMDB long ago. It's just too ugly. Annie Hall is one of those years the academy actually got it right for BP. One of the very, very few years!
I'm very pleased with this year. With the exception of BSActress and Song, every winner deserved his/her Oscar. I had some favorites that didn't win (Johannson, Lachmann, McCarthy), but the alternatives were good choices. Innaritu will have some big-time backlash now but I thought his work in The Revenant was very good - if not quite to the level of McCarthy or Miller. Spotlight was my favorite movie from the nominated ones, so I'm happy there. I loved that there were at least 3 legitimate upsets - Editing, Visual Effects and BSActor.
As with most Oscar shows there were highs and lows. I enjoyed the girl scout cookie bit. I loved the sound and cinematography award clips. I laughed my ass off at "The danish, girl!" and Louis CK's documentary short monologue. While the diversity commentary was necessary, I don't feel like Rock prepared well for his job beyond that. The interviews with moviegoers in Compton was a flop and embarrassing - are you trying to tell me that no one who sees movies in Compton, California has heard of Bridge of Spies?
Still the good outweighed the bad. Thanks again for all you do Nat. Ready for those April Foolish predictions!
Maybe this is trivia you'd rather not get brought up, but... "Mad Max" and "Star Wars" are the only two to win 5 Oscars without a "major" (acting/writing/directing) win.
Glenn: Thanks for setting out this exclusive list of films. Five excellent films, in their own, very different ways. A Place in the Sun is perhaps the odd one out in that it's the only one out of the five that lost Best Picture to a film that didn't deserve it as much. Cabaret, Star Wars, Gravity and Max Max: Fury Road all lost to strong films (The Godfather and Annie Hall especially).
Marcos: Funny you should mention The Greatest Show on Earth: Spotlight is the first film since then to win just Best Picture and a writing award. Though I suspect it is generally seen as a much higher-quality film" (though, having avoided The Greatest Show on Earth for years due to its poor reputation, when I did finally see it a few years ago I was fairly well entertained by it - although High Noon is better).
Guestguestguest: That's true out of this quintet of films - but Hugo won five tech awards and no 'biggies' too.
I was going to say that last night's results represent the first time in Oscar history that a film has won three times as many Oscars as the Best Picture winner - but 1935 betters that, when Mutiny on the Bounty won only Best Picture and The Informer won four Oscars.
As for Inarritu's win, somehow I don't mind it quite as much as I thought I might, because The Revenant didn't also won Picture. If it had, I would have felt it very unjust that two f his films should win back-to-back - partly because The Revenant was not, for me, the best of this year's Picture nominees (although I liked it a fair amount) but also because I didn't think that Birdman deserved all its awards last year. But, even though Inarritu won it over a strong bunch of nominees (above all Miller), he did do good work in the film. It's almost like when Oliver Stone won a second directing Oscar for Born on the Fourth of July, the only difference being that Inarritu has won two years running.
I enjoyed this year's ceremony for the most part, thought Chris Rock did a generally good job, and felt that the show had fewer dud moments than usual.
I gotta say, it's great to wake up to a post which mentions four of my all-time favorite films (including my #1—hello, Miss Taylor) and gifs two of them (hi, Liza).
All that and Tom Hardy, too.
That Liz Taylor shot. I grew up in the '70s and never understood why she was such a huge star. Then in college I saw "A Place in the Sun" and went, "Ohhhh."
Off topic, but related to A Place in the Sun--did anyone listen to that story on KCRW's UnFictional called I Am Montgomery Clift by the writer/actor Craig Chester? He has also told it on The Moth. Cray-cray-crazy.
I love Tom Hardy more every day; he actually smiled at Leo's thanks. Did any of the tech winners mention him or Charlize? I can't recall.
@ Pam
Yup to your first question.
I didn't see Annie Hall until years later and when I did I thought yep that's a winner. I saw Spotlight recently with my mum and we both thought it was great but while I still wanted Max to win she said nope Spotlight's the one. 30 secs after the announcement mums on the phone- I told you so.
SIX Oscar wins is an incredible achievement by any rule of measure. And just look at the company it landed in, as Glenn pointed out.
And yet. A couple more would've been even better.
Chivo is brilliant but he didn't NEED to threepeat.
George Miller winning BD would've been A+ on all levels.
The fantastic score was snubbed entirely.
Good for them tho.
I'm just glad that "The Revenant" kept loosing George Miller is a true visionary director .
i just spent SO MUCH TIME enjoying the moment when R2's head would turn at the same time as Taylor's. THANK YOU!