Ten Best Picture Nominees Again!
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 1:13PM by Nathaniel R
Ah... the annual tweaking of the rules is upon us again. The Academy has been frantically trying to keep up with societal changes and has made quite a few strides with their gender parity and racial diversity inititiatives over the past handful of years. We've also seen Best Picture winners that would have seemed impossible ten years before like Moonlight (2016) and Parasite (2019). The Academy is continuing with their diversity initiatives over the next five years which you can read about here we won't attempt to summarize it as it's definitely in the planning rather than implementing stages. But a lot of it sounds really smart like unconscious bias training and screenings and discussions and industry-focused inititatives (as we've long said, the Academy can only vote on the films that Hollywood actually makes!).
Nevertheless there are two concrete pieces of news we must discuss...
One of the most celebrated tweaks in recent history was not prompted by concerns about racial diversity or gender parity but about the range of the kinds of films Oscar was willing to honor. For years and years Oscar just stuck to their message movies and biopics and war films and prestige dramas. Those types of films are still very popular with Oscar --their taste is their taste is their taste -- but in 2009 the Academy expanded the Best Picture field from 5 to 10 nominees in the hopes of widening the net of the kinds of films which might be honored. Would an expanded field help them avoid future embarrassing shutouts of non-typical beloveds like The Dark Knight and Wall*E (both of which were wildly acclaimed and received numerous BEST raves but couldn't crack a very retro feeling list of 5 Best Picture nominees in 2008 that nobody outside of the Academy seemed all that excited about.)
The expansion worked at first allowing more sci-fi films and comedies and LGBTQ films and animated films in. That tweak was in place for just two years (2009 & 2010), after which they moved to a sliding scale based on percentages of votes.
The current system allows for anywhere between 5 and 10 Best Picture nominees. But in the nine years this system has been in place thus far we have only ever seen either 8 or 9 Best Picture nominees. We've also seen some unfortunate side-effects like less films being nominated overall in the craft categories as if the expanded Best Picture list actually narrows the voters interest in their screening stacks and focuses them on maybe a dozen hopefuls overall. The Academy has no plans to addres this problem of course as it's hard to explain or even quantify but it's the truth (check out last year's Oscars for a startling example of the increasing amounts of nominations for Best Picture players and very little remaining for anyone else.)
It's no secret that we've sometimes missed the 5 wide lists, which felt more 'special' and statistics-interesting, but we'd prefer an even 10 to the sliding scale (which is too messy/inconsistent -- yes, we're looking at you Emmys). So we're happy to report that the sliding scale expansion experiment will end with this upcoming Oscars (dates still in flux due to concerns over COVID-19 and theaters still mostly being closed). The 94th Oscars honoring the films of 2021 will return to that 2009 system of a full top ten list! What'cha think?
FINALLY...
Here's one initiative that we're VERY excited and shocked about that might help with some long-standing problems we thought Oscar would never address. A quote from the Academy:
The Academy will also implement a quarterly viewing process through the Academy Screening Room, the streaming site for Academy members, also starting with the 94th Academy Awards. By making it possible for members to view films released year-round, the Academy will broaden each film’s exposure, level the playing field, and ensure all eligible films can be seen by voting members.
That change is still a year away but it's long been needed as a way to counter the problems of the December glut and increase the likelihood (even if only a little) that studios will release Oscar-calibre films in all months of the year and not just save them up to dump in a tiny window around Christmas.
Reader Comments (90)
I think and hope quarterly viewings will bring about more diversity in nominations. Ten best picture nominees probably won't affect nominations quite as much.
AWESOME NEWS! 10 is more interesting and I feel like sticking with it for a longer period will bear delicious cinematic fruit. I loved seeing A Serious Man, Up, AND District 9 all nominated in 2009. I also, at the time at least, really liked the whole 2010 lineup. Especially seeing Toy Story 3 and Winter's Bone be able to tout themselves as Best Picture Nominees.
Ten, Ten, Tens across the board for this move Academy!
The firm ten rule change and the quarterly screenings are such exciting choices. Can’t wait to see how this plays out
About time for those early bird releases.
Just open up the movies theaters so the public can see 10 films this year!
Is it possible the quarterly viewing process might as a result of allowing the members to see more films actually improve the narrowing of the screening list that you mention in the first point?
I think the quarterly shift could be exciting. I think about a film like Get Out, which had a lot of buzz when it was released, but had to do a lot to maintain that buzz throughout the year. Making films more accessible to members year round could make it easier to sustain buzz.
I'm sure as most years go I'll be heavily disappointed in a lot of the nominations, but today I bask in the Academy's move toward good decision making. The ten was a great idea, was working well enough and then ceased when things were getting interesting. Then we had an underwhelming 2011 slate, so why not chance it to see if a great film could eke through. Followed by the decent enough 2012 slate (highlighted by Amour getting a Best Picture nom, probably not in a group of five with the Academy despite signs to the contrary) which why not add an extra one and bolster the years reputation further. I believe the very good Skyfall was a chance?
Ugh the awesome news gets me rambling. What a small beacon of escapist hope in small trivial pleasures during these bleak days. Brava Academy!
This is tremendous news: a firm 10 nominees for Best Picture - yes, more diversity- absolutely.
Both of these changes are quite exciting. Personally, I hope the quarterly screenings help movies released earlier in the year to get more Oscar love. However, I'm cautious about hoping too much from the Academy.
The re-expansion to ten makes me wonder what movies would have been nominated for Best Picture if the ten-wide field had been maintained from 2011 onwards instead of the fluctuating number of nominees. My best guesses are:
2011 - Bridesmaids
2012 - Skyfall
2013 - Blue Jasmine (or Frozen?)
2014 - Foxcatcher & Interstellar
2015 - Carol & Inside Out
2016 - Jackie (?)
2017 - Mudbound
2018 - If Beale Street Could Talk & The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (I'm very unsure about this year)
2019 - The Two Popes
Although I still miss the prestige of only 5 - i Tok would rather have fixed number. But what will the field look like this year with theatres closed and having to fill 10 spots!?!?
This is the recent oscars announcement that I can say congrats to the body. To me every change they tried to implement under the presidency of John Bailey received major backlash and ended up being overtturned,
The changes announced today seem right and show promise for what the academy could accomplish if they make smart choices for change instead of changes for viewership.
I hate to break it to everyone, but the Oscars are over. Streaming has taken over and people cannot even go to movie theaters, all the movie stars are old or deceased, so why bother trying to beat a dead horse?
Joan, know your audience.
I thought the 10 nominees rule was already implemented but for a silly reason they just opted to nominated just more than 6 contenders.
The fact of having ten nominees sounds great for me but that could affect the diversity of nominations like happend this year, the films nominated for the big prize was repetitive in the technical categories but I think that the second rule could help to balance that.
Laquanda: If I were to guess what would, realistically, fill the empty slots from 2011 to 2019?
2011: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (An acting nomination and MANY technicals. Still would have preferred Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as a surprise, but it doesn't quite have the techs to clearly make it.)
2012: Dicey, and I don't really like either of these, but it's either The Master or Flight.
2013: Blue Jasmine
2014: Foxcatcher (In a flat ten, NO Director Nomination would miss) and...I'm going out on there being, along with Selma, another "this got some fairly major 6th places" (especially Editing and Adapted Screenplay, and MAYBE more than that) limb here, but...Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
2015: Carol and Inside Out.
2016: Zootopia. (Sorry, but I can't really see any of the seven other "big eight" nominees that year (Captain Fantastic, Jackie, Loving, Elle, Florence Foster Jenkins, Nocturnal Animals and The Lobster) making it all the way to Picture.)
2017: I know the safer picks would either be the racism drama Mudbound or the supa cool Baby Driver, but...I'm calling it for the gritty nail-biting deconstruction Logan.
2018: Cold War and Can You Ever Forgive Me?
2019: The Two Popes
The Quarterly Review process is TERRIFIC and I am so glad it's being implemented. Hopefully this will lessen the force and ridiculousness of the barrage of campaigning we see at the end of the year.
But I really am not crazy about the 10-wide best picture change. I was fine with the current system of 5-10 nominees, although my dream is to go back to the 5 rule.
I'm really not sure why everyone is so thrilled with the change. You do realize this is how we got best picture nominees The Blind Side and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? I actually think more best picture nominees leads to less quality. Eventually they'll expand all the acting nominees to a 10-wide field and everyone will get an Oscar.
I believe when you use a preferential ballot, it programs you to champion your first choices, that's why there's few movies nominated.
I like the idea of the stream services, but the academy should put a survey at the end of every movie in which they mark every category in which they think the movie excels. And before voting for nominations, the service should remind them the movies they marked as great in their categories. And they could only vote for a movie if they saw the whole movie. Otherwise, I have little hope of real change.
Aaron - I would be happy with 10 acting nominees in each category, and also allowing double nominations for a performer. Maybe with more slots there would be less category fraud.
Aaron: The Blind Side was probably, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was definitely, a 6-10 nominee, not a flat ten nominee. There are only THREE clearly "flat ten" nominees: A Serious Man, Up and Toy Story 3. Up's my least favourite of those, but other people love it, and it sets the benchmark for Animation fandom in the Academy.
They should stick to five.
I miss/prefer the five nominees option, but Ok. Hope this bring more foreign language movies and comedies and indies. 🍧
No, this will not help films based on comic books to be nominated. [Although, it helped Black Panther]. Thanks.
Joan Crawford would NEVER say that about Hollywood.
I'm optimistic more genre work will get in for Best Picture.
But you have to find ten films that are actually Oscar worthy?
Fredo: Hey, was I predicting Guardians 2 (Grittiness score: 3) or Thor: Ragnarok (Grittiness score: 4)? On a 1-10 grittiness scale, The Dark Knight (9), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (7), Logan (10) and Black Panther (6) are not just "good" but also ALL in the grittier half of superhero movies. Even this re-expansion won't help any otherwise good enough superhero movie that's lower than a 6 on that scale, but a flat ten might help any sufficiently good one that would score a 6 or higher on a "gritty for a superhero movie" scale.
This is the best news. I feel as good as a front page full of Cláudio articles, that overjoyed and excited.
Over a large sample size it was found that supporters of five nominees over the superior ten were more likely to be antisocial, belligerent and dabble in many types of bigotry.
So with that in mind, very pleased about the announcement.
I have not commented about this before, but regarding Parasite, as an European I don’t nessecary like when foreign films win. You might think it’s opposite of what I should feel but I rather not have the odd foreign film winning or nominated in main categories as if all the other foreign films are inferior to Hollywood films. I rather if Oscars were just an Hollywood industry ceremony (with a foreign film or foreign language film category). I would love another international awards ceremony however for all films that would have equal prestige and very diverse winners. Or if at least EBU had one arranged for European films the way they do have Eurovision Song Contest (although quality of the contest might not be always great it’s fun time and promoting European songs).
A few tacky staunch ‘fivers’ won’t spoil the elation. Academy making moves and looking good doing it. Ten Again!
Tired: 5 or 5-10
Wired: Steady 10
I'd say "Knives Out" was tenth last year and not "The Two Popes" but I might be wrong.
"The Blind Side" BP nomination had the system revoked for a decade so it's actually interesting change.
I LOVE the idea of quarterly viewing process. In theory it sounds truly exciting.
Scientiste, LOL. 🍬
I hope the academy demands that a movie only could be eligible for the Oscars if 40-50% of the crew are female and not Caucasian, especially the head departments.
I hope they don't long too much to creat the Oscars for stunt coordinators.
Are the 10 Best Picture nominees still going to be chosen by the preferential voting system?
You have to hand it to The Academy. So many issues within the film community regarding representation are far bigger than them, yet they have continued to lead the way in Hollywood on this issue.
so the headline here is about new representation & inclusion standards for Oscar eligibility yet you're just don't want to deal with that. AT ALL. So this is what you "we won't attempt to summarize it as it's definitely in the planning rather than implementing stages."
WOW. Just wow
Yes I guess this is way of including more films
It's just all going downhill. Ten films in today's marketplace is the Emmy's.
Can't wait for the new Brooklyn or the new Little Women knowing they'll never win!
PS, my advice is that remove the theatrical requirement and any film without commercials qualifies. The distinctions don't make sense anymore in the modern world where everything is streaming.
PRITI -The Academy admits themselves in the press release that those "representation and inclusion standards" (which, you're right, are the headline) are "to be established" so it didn't seem smart to attempt to summarize something that doesn't yet exist.
Other than to state -- as I did -- that the ideas floated (screenings, future initiativies, bias training) seem smart. Be mad about it if you want but really why waste the energy? We're happy they're making these changes.
ANDREW -- i'm proud of them too. They can only vote on what films are made (as we've said for years) so good on them for attempting to be leaders in this so that they have a more diverse pool of films on which to vote.
KEN S -- i think 10 nominees in the acting categories would be disastrous. It would just be everybody in the prestige movies, regardless of quality. my theory at least.
HARRY -- but why would they want to become the Emmys when the Oscars are still more popular?
JARAGON -- there are always more than 10 films that are Oscar worthy. I feel like when voters say that it's hard to fill all the spaces on the ballot that they're just not watching that many movies.
The range of diversity and inclusivity initiatives the Academy is developing sounds impressive and I look forward to further announcements.
Re: the move back to ten Best Picture nominees: will voters be invited to list up to ten films on their nomination ballots, as was the case in 2009 and 2010, or will they still be invited to list only five, as has been the case since 2011? That is the crucial distinction. Listing up to ten meant that voters had room to list both the typical Oscar fare (prestige dramas etc.) and more a-typical films (District 9, Winter's Bone etc.). That all came to an end with the 2011 Oscars, when ballots permitted only five choices per voter. It would be best, I think, if voters can list up to ten films again.
Edward -- that's a really good point and question. I wonder...
Sorry but there is no difference now between Emmy and Oscar. Rami, Laura Dern, these are TV stars.
Ewww... is there even going to be ten films to be worthy this year? It’s June and I count zero so far
So many people say "there aren't going to be 10 good films to nominate this year!" Doesn't matter. This doesn't go into effect for another year. Did you folks read Nathanial's post carefully or just skim it really fast?
Agreed, I prefer 5 or 10. And had it been 10 all last decade I’d say these films would have filled the open slots:
2011: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2012: The Master
2013: Blue Jasmine
2014: Foxcatcher / Gone Girl
2015: Carol / Inside Out
2016: Jackie
2017: Mudbound
2018: If Beale Street Could Talk / Cold War
2019: The Two Popes
2011: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
2012: Skyfall
2013: Blue Jasmine or Before Midnight
2014: Ida /Interstellar
2015: Carol / Ex Machina
2016: The Lobster or Elle
2017: Logan or Blade Runner 2049
2018: Cold War / First Reformed
2019: Portrait of a Lady on Fire