by Nathaniel R
That complete sweep at the Spirits and SAG has us wondering now whether or not Everything Everywhere All At Once will win Best Picture but how many statues in total can actually win. We haven't seen a sweeper at the Oscars in a long long time. Yes some films have won all their categories but they aren't true "sweepers" i.e. thoroughly dominant movies. It would be technically accurate, for example, to say that CODA performed a clean sweep last season. It did win all of its categories but it wasn't a sweeper in any meaningful sense since it was only up for 3 Oscars.
In fact, a big sweep hasn't yet happened in the expanded Best Picture era! Can Everything Everywhere All At Once change that? Let's look at the history and stats after the jump...
The last sweeper, Slumdog Millionaire, was 14 years ago
The expanded era, for those that have lost track, began in 2009 when they moved briefly to 10 nominees. They'd adjust slightly two years later to a sliding scale which always produced either 8 or 9 nominees and now we're back to a full 10. Here at TFE we've always had mixed feelings about making the Best Picture race so large. Statistically it has resulted in fewer films being recognized across all categories which is a curse. The silver lining is that one film has rarely been deemed the Best of Everything since a "Best Picture" citation became easier to land; A contradictory outcome -- there's less spreading of wealth in nominations, but more winners. The easiest way to spot this new contradiction is the fact that Best Picture and Best Director splits, which were once rare, are now common.
Six statues has proven itself as the max haul for popular movies on Oscar nights in this new era. Here are a few observations about the whole thing. 2008 was the last year of the traditional Best Picture era (i.e. only five nominees). Slumdog Millionaire swept with 8 wins (from 10 nominations... losing only Sound Editing, since it was double-nominated in Original Song). No film since has won that many Oscars.
Most Oscars won since the Expanded Era began
2009 - Hurt Locker (6)
2010 - Inception and The King's Speech (4 each)
2011 - The Artist and Hugo (5 each)
2012 - Life of Pi (4)
2013 - Gravity (7)
2014 - Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel (4 each)
2015 - Mad Mad Fury Road (6)
2016 - La La Land (6)
2017 - The Shape of Water (4)
2018 - Bohemian Rhapsody (4)
2019 - Parasite (4)
2020 - Nomadland (3)
2021 - Dune (6)
As you can see as little as four Oscars now often makes you the "top" winner. It's interesting to note that of the 16 films that "won the most Oscars" in their years in the expanded era, over half of them did NOT win Best Picture. The exception proving the rule of the new 'six maximum' reality is Gravity which won 7 but lost the big prize.
No film has truly "swept" in the past 13 years ...none have really even come close to sweeping. Now compare that to the previous set of thirteen years and it's striking.
The English Patient (1996)
Most Oscar wins before the expansion in the same amount of time
1996 - The English Patient (9) a sweep
1997 - Titanic (11) a sweep
1998 - Shakespeare in Love (7)
1999 - American Beauty (5)
2000 - Gladiator (5)
2001 - A Beautiful Mind and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (4 each)
2002 - Chicago (6)
2003 - Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (11) a clean sweep winning every category it was up for
2004 - The Aviator (5)
2005 - Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong, and Memoirs of a Geisha (an anomalous year with 4 films winning 3 each)
2006 - The Departed (4)
2007 - No Country For Old Men (4)
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire (8) a sweep
So "sweeps" basically ended with the Best Picture expansion. Since less movies are nominated now each year across all categories, high nomination counts are, as a result, normalized. Clean sweeps are now even more difficult to pull off.
We will eventually see a sweep again in the modern era. It might even be next weekend if Everything Everywhere All At Once can win, say, 7 or 8 statues. But can it?
Everything Everywhere All At Once's 10 categories
PICTURE - frontrunner
DIRECTOR - frontrunner
ACTRESS - nail-biter race
SUPPORTING ACTOR - frontrunner
SUPPORTING ACTRESS - potential spoiler
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY -nail-biter race
FILM EDITING - frontrunner
COSTUME DESIGN - not expected to win
ORIGINAL SCORE - not expected to win
ORIGINAL SONG - not expected to win
Everything Everywhere... is considered the strong frontrunner in 4 categories (Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, and Editing) and there's very little chance now that it *won't* emerge as the film that wins the most Oscars on March 12th.
But how many can it win?
If the nail-biter categories (Actress, Screenplay) go its way that's 6 Oscars which is the unofficial maximum haul now as we've outlined above. If it takes Best Supporting Actress (and that SAG win for Jamie Lee Curtis proves prophetic) that would be 7 Oscars which would tie it with Gravity in the expanded era. All the headlines would surely read "Sweep!"... though to be fair the headlines will read "sweep" even if it only wins 4 or 5 Oscars because headlines love hyperbole and media journalism tends to have very loose definitions of words.
But we personally wouldn't consider it a sweeper if it's under 7 Oscars (we're awards nerds that way) unless its just six and it takes all three of its acting categories which is so extremely rare as to be enormously noteworthy and dominant.
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
THE ONLY FILMS IN HISTORY TO WIN 3 ACTING CATEGORIES
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Network (1976)
Yep, that's the complete list. Very short. Interesting that neither of the films won Best Picture in their year, though. What's more they're both very hard-hitting DRAMAS. As a comedy, Everything Everywhere All At Once taking multiple acting Oscars would be beyond unusual and cement it in history as one of Oscar's all time favourite films.
Currently while Supporting Actress is competitive, and Supporting Actor is Everything's only acting "lock"... a Best Actress (Yeoh) /Best Supporting Actor (Quan) combo feels quite possible. This exact category combo has only happened six times in history and curiously in NO previous cases did the actors play a married couple. Though onscreen marrieds have won Oscars together it's never happened in this exact combo.
FILMS THAT HAVE WON BOTH BEST ACTRESS & BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
(and what the relationships were)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - romantic interests
Hud (1963) - employer and employee
Cabaret (1972) - coworkers
Terms of Endearment (1983) - romantic interests
Million Dollar Baby (2004) - coworkers
Three Billboards (2017) - angry citizen and cop
Onscreen marriages have won double Oscars before but it's rare and it's never happened with the Actress/Supporting Actor combo.
Sayonara (1957) - the first time an onscreen married relationship resulted in two acting Oscars
THE ONLY TIMES AN ONSCREEN MARRIAGE HAS RESULTED IN TWO ACTING OSCARS*
Sayonara (1957) -both supporting
Kramer vs Kramer (1979) -lead actor, supporting actress
On Golden Pond (1980) -both lead
The fun thing about the EEAAO possible double-win is that it will complete the category combo possibilities for a marriage winning two acting Oscars... (at least until someday far in the future if the categories stay gendered and a same-sex marriage results in two wins.)
* not including movies where a wedding or engagement happens at the very end since the movie isn't about a marriage
So considering all that -- yes it's a lot but so is Everything Everywhere -- how many Oscar do you think EEAAO can take on Oscar night... and which ones?