Thanks to filmboymichael for spotting this amazing news:
There will be 10 best picture nominees starting with the 82nd Oscar ceremony, skedded for March 7, at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
The announcement was made Wednesday morning at AMPAS headquarters in BevHills by Acad prez Sid Ganis. Oscar noms will be unveiled Feb. 2.
Ganis explains in a press release sent to us from AcademyAwardsGuru:
“After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,” said Ganis. “The final outcome, of course, will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.”
“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” commented Ganis. “I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”
115 Responses for "Oscar expands best pic noms to 10!"
nice..maybe a foreign lang movie will sneak in..
‘up’ for best picture..
This annoys me.
I’m not sure I like that…
I think this is incredible news….there have been 5 nominees for so many years now – but we now have hundreds of movies released every year and we always seem to have at least 3 pre ordained best pic nominees….this gives movies like, perhaps UP or heaven forbid a great comedy get a chance to shine….
I think it may just also provide an ample surprise because how do you get a surefire winner from 10 nominees….
I say kudos to the academy….you needed to shake things up a bit and i think this was a step in the right direction….now just bring back bill condon and hugh jackman and we got a winner here.
God Damnit. If this was last year, Dark fuckin’ Knight would’ve had a chance.
*sigh*
But it looks like the chances for Up to be nominated for Best Picture have just increased tenfold. It’ll be interesting, to say the least.
My gut reaction here is that this will significantly undercut the preceived value of the nomination because the club is now less exclusive. It certianly won’t help the running time of the broadcast either, with 10 films to feature.
However, on the bright side, this will make it that much harder for the Academy to ignore great popular films (last year, surely THE DARK KNIGHT and WALL-E were close to getting in), and this may pave the way for UP (or even STAR TREK) to break the barrier and get a nom.
10 seems like a bit much. 7 maybe, but 10 I think is too many. It’s basically going to be 5 or 6 movies that really deserve it and 4 or 5 that are just filler. sigh.
I love this idea! I mean this year the Academy snubbed The Wrestler and The Dark Knight
for the likes of The fucking Reader(sorry Ryan) and Frost/Nixon! So maybe next year The Academy can fix their mistake and actually nominate good films? Ugh, I’m confused. Wait, what if Drag Me to Hell, Up, Star Trek became became BP noms? :O
Awesome. AMPAS knows they have to shake things up and this is a pretty interesting step in what I think is the right direction. I really like the comfy number 5, but I’ve been complaining for too long about movies getting shut out of the big competition. So with that in mind, this could result in some very worthy movies getting the attention they actually deserve.
If this had happened last year, then maybe The Dark Knight and The Wrestler (two of the biggest snubs, in my opinion) would have squeezed in. Maybe even Rachel Getting Married (though I’m not too confident about that one). Either way, this is a bold decision and one that I am looking forward to being paid off next February.
I see your point, Jake, but I think with the high number of films being released today – the club is still pretty darned exclusive….
This is huge! The possibilities become endless now! Do you think this might have anything to do with the horrific snubs the Academy dealt last year?
Of course, expanding the field to 10 nominees now simply means that the five that get nominated for Director or Editor automatically become the frontrunners, with the other five having the nomination as consolation prizes.
I think I’m all for this. We’ll see how it flies.
(Star Trek anyone???)
sorry for double post, Ryan can you delete the duplicate one?
Well, Pixar will get their first nomination now, and it won’t mean a damn thing. Especially when the Academy just decide to cut it back to five nominations again in a couple of years.
It’s just a desperate ploy to get people watching the show. What they forget is that after a couple of weeks, no one cares about the ceremony, but the records of nominations last forever, and 10 nominations will definitely decrease the value of the award.
Poor Dark Knight…
And poor The Wrestler, the real best movie of 2008.
I personally think it’s a good decision, even if it’s true that the value of the nomination will diminish.
It’s the best director race that will reaffirm wich best pic noms are the most important.
So does this mean that Matt Damon will be in 3 BP films this year. Green Zone, Informant and the Mandela movie? The year of the Damon. yay!
Nice!!! now we are going to see
Bride Wars for Best Picture!!
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now after United 93, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Dark Knight, Wall-E were fuckin snubbed…..
10 is a chunk but it’s a solid “round” number.
It’s funny how they always have retrospective announcements – like best animated feature AFTER Chicken Run was snubbed.
My guess is that when a movie like Transformers or Paul Blart or some such sneaks in a Best Picture nomination, they’ll go back to the Five nominees.
Seriously, what could end up happening is that with a diluted voting pool a film could potentially win Best Picture without winning Director, an Acting Award, Screenplay, or other major awards.
This is like giving a “participation trophy” to the kids on the baseball team who never picked up a bat or glove ever.
I credit uprising over TDK snub for this change. of course, it is too late for TDK but it`s a testament to how influential this movie is. Ok, so we TDK/Nolan fanboys and fangirls didn`t get them a nom but AMPAS is expending number of BP nominees. It`s TDK doing. They had horrid ratings before but didn`t think of this change. So…yeah.
However, if this 10 best is only in 1 category, BP, there will be at least 5 movies that “directed themselves”, no? Unless they stretch 10 Besties in every category or at least all most important ones.
Not a fan of this move. Not a fan at all. LAME.
If Up doesn’t get into the ten best pics there’s something wrong with these douches……
what a lot of you are forgetting is, last year, for example, everyone seemed to know what film was number 6, 7, 8….now you’ll know…
Rahulio, you sir have good taste. Chicken Run is one of the best animated films of the decade, and was IMO better than most of the best picture nominations of 2000.
I forgot to give a shout out to The Wrestler, Diving Bell, Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, City of God, Shrek, Spirited Away, Adaptation, Minority Report, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, Into the Wild, Once, and many others that were snubbed this decade but will shine on as classics of their time. They were ignored for reasons both petty and insignificant, but I certainly hope they all become classics in years to come (some already have).
BTW Ryan, I’d put ‘Up’ in the Best Score category. I don’t want to jump the bandwagon and say it’ll win necessarily, but the music is so far my favorite score of the year, and I doubt the Academy will ignore it if they nominated Ratatouille and Wall-e.
Maybe the fact that 10 slots are available will make the academy members vote for more unusual types of films.
oh my fucking God!!!
that’s awesome news,Oscars needed refreshment definitely
most exciting oscarwatching in years will be this one!!!
This may be only a window dressing, you know, like pandering to masses by nominating popular movies with critical acclaim without giving them a real chance to win, hence 10 best Picture nominees but only 5 best Director, Actor/Actress, BSA&BSA, script nominees. if, lets say, worthy successor to TDK gets a blockbuster-with-critical-backing spot in BP but no director and script, kiss the win goodbye.
Are we sure this isn’t a belated April Fools Joke?
I feel like from now on it won’t be as prestigious at all, and when people look back it’ll be like “wow, that movie got nominated when they only had 5!”
But now Precious and Up are for sure in which is cool.
I don´t believe!
I don´t have words!
It isn´t natural.
I don´t understand the world anymore.
Somebody, help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why not make it a vaudeville show? I hate it!
I can;t…….I don’t…..I shouldn’t.
No news has shaken me more in the last year than this one. Seriously….The Oscars are my personal religion. I am disgusted beyond all belief.
I cannot BELIEVE they would do this. You are going to get shit like “Devil Wears Prada”, “The Bucket List” etc. nominated now, and Best Picture means nothing. (Not that it means anything, we all know it is a studio push most of the time) – but STILL……OMG
OMIGOD!!! I’ve been begging for this for years. YAY
I don’t like it. Ten nominees is a bit much. As someone said 6 or 7 seems like a good number. I predict in few years they’ll reduce this number. It certainly takes the suspense out of the predicting thing.
This is simply the worst thing I have ever heard.
“I cannot BELIEVE they would do this. You are going to get shit like “Devil Wears Prada”, “The Bucket List” etc. nominated now, and Best Picture means nothing. (Not that it means anything, we all know it is a studio push most of the time) – but STILL……OMG”
Why do you say that? There were some dern good films last year that would have gotten into the top 10 before those you mentioned. The Wrestler, WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Frozen River just to name a few.
Hmmm???? I still can’t quite believe this. I have read everyone’s comments and it seems we are split. Many feel it is a brilliant move, necessarry to help re-vitalize the Oscars, others feel it is a terrible move. I am personally confused and still don’t quite know how I feel. I agree that by expanding the list, you are essentially diminishing the honor of making it into the Best Picture race. There is no distinction made between THE READER, MILK, BENJAMIN BUTTON or FROST/NIXON (for example)….they are ALL BP noms (but not winners)….Having 9 runners-up seems like it is spreading the honor too thin. If this criteria had been in place this past year and TDK, Wall-E & The Wrestler made it onto the list, ok fine, but what about the other two slots???? What else would have been there? I appreciate the Academy’s willingness to try to evolve and, as someone else stated, most critics put out top ten lists, so why not the Oscars?? I guess we’ll have to see how it shakes out before we REALLY will know how we feel. I just really hope they don’t tinker with the acting categories….I could maybe live with a bump to 6 noms each, MAYBE, but not ten….can you imagine 40 acting nominees each year???? Oy!
I am stunned. I am still waiting to see if this isn’t a hoax of some sort.
If this is on the level, can we begin the campaign right here, right now to NOT stop the broadcast for a 30-second ‘presentation’ of every BP nominee? I can barely handle this momentum-killer with five films, ten will make it excruciating. Seconded?
i wana vomit…
Maybe at least they could count them down throughout the program. Rather than introducing them one at a time throughout the night and then recapping them all at the end when announcing the winner, we could go into the night knowing the ten noms and periodically someone would come out with an envelope revealing the next ranked filme. For example, early on, Goldie Hawn comes out as the big screen behind her shows ten boxes, featuring stills of the bp noms….she announces “and the year’s tenth best film is “lalala” and that box fills in with a shadowy ten…..the show proceeds on and a bit later someone steps out, screen behind them shows the ten boxes again, with #10 still shadowed out and they announce no. 9. They could do this throughout the night until there are only two left or even just until the final five…..I don’t know, it just might make having ten pictures mean more if they were ranked.
ropeofsilicon.com writer Brad Brevet had this to say:
The move is an obvious response to the recent discussion concerning The Dark Knight’s absence from the nominees for more art house style films such as The Reader and I would expect we can now look at Up as a serious contender for a Best Picture nominee when previous Pixar favorites Ratatouille and WALL-E were left in the cold.
10 noms…
… 9 more chances they will choose the WRONG winner
… 5 more stickers attached to Blus and DvDs..”Best Picture Nominee!”….. I can see it now, “Zombie Vampire Nazi Killers from Mars – Best Picture Nominee” – instant rental hit
They’ll be back to 5 noms in a year or two
T.
(secretly hopes this works for an actual quality benefit, tho)
vcb, don’t wanna cry?
If crap can manage to sneak into to top 5 then even more crap will make in with 10 noms. I am sure next year too we’ll we talking about some big snubs.
As for myself, I have some mixed feelings. I like it to an extent because now the Academy doesn’t have to look like a bunch of stodgy film snobs who appear to have a dislike to crowdpleasers. On the other hand, 10 is a bit too much. I’d be happy with seven or eight. Also I don’t think having 10 will include some real louy movies. I know the Critics Choice have 10 and the ten they have are usually very good.
I think I understand what the Academy is doing… since animated films have their category… there is no way in the world animated films could have become nominated for best pic if there are only 6-7 slots. Academy members will still prefer to nominate live action films. By making it ten, the academy reveals their top 10 films every year like most critic organisations do… And I guess it’s all TDK’s doing… it’s all part of the plan…
I’m thinking of 1989, when there were four films that deserved noms, but got shut out:
Henry V
Cinema Paradiso
Glory
Do the Right Thing
and one of these:
Drugstore Cowboy
Born on the Fourth of July
Sex, Lies and Videotape
10 choices that year would have been perfect.
It’s rare that a year has 10 worthy best picture nominees. With only 5 director nominees, you can IMMEDIATELY write off the 5 that don’t get director nominations. They will be in the “it was an honor just to be nominated” category. This doesn’t increase the competition. It waters it down. If they want to be bold, they should increase the acting and directing nominee groups to 10.
Part of me really loves this. Part of me really hates this.
Sam,
Born on the Fourth of July WAS nominated in 1989. I like your picks, though, and would add Crimes & Misdemeanors.
Also kind of like this idea, though I’ll hold my opinion until we see what actually gets nominated. Five more from last year — TDK, WALL-E, Waltz with Bashir, Wrestler, and maybe Frozen River? That would have been a great list.
O.M.F.G…I’m speechless…
poor WALL-E and The Dark Knight!!!
First reaction: Is this some kind of joke?
Couldn’t ber more easy if the all the 5.000 members of the AMPAS will pose to a collective photo holding a sign with the statement: “We ask for the forgiveness of Humankind because this year we nominated “The Reader” for BP but not “The Dark Knight”?
AMPAS should have followed what the Emmys are doing and simply changed all the major categories to 6 nominations. I agree with others that 10 is a bit much. I think 7 or 8 nominees would have had a similar impact while still maintaining the appearance that TDK didn’t cause this.
FYC: UP
I don’t mind this as long as they take the oppurtunity to honor different kinds of films instead of many Oscar-bait films.
Kinda have mixed feelings bout this. In one way films that deserve recognition may actually get a mention, but the fact that it’s been only 5 nominees for so long, won’t getting a nomination now, in a away, be “cheapened?”. Don’t get me wrong, some films that were snubbed in the past deserved to get in. But that’s just it. It’s in the past, and no point looking back on it now. The Academy can’t make up for past mistakes by introducing 10! And also, some of the nominees will just be there to “fill in the numbers” now, if you know what I mean?
This is good news. Just think about all those films you’re gonna wish to be nominated, and this year that film just might. I don’t get why this is so wrong either. Just because it’s been 5 nominees for so long?.
Come check out The Oscar Hut for polls on the subject as well as in depth analysis on which movies I think will make it into the new top 10!
http://www.theoscarhut.blogspot.com
So are the members of the ballot going to pick a top 5 or a top 10 when the fill out there nominee ballots.
Less is more I think…
THE HURT LOCKER
THE ROAD
PUBLIC ENEMIES
SHUTTER ISLAND
BRIGHT STAR
AN EDUCATION
INVICTUS
PRECIOUS
A PROPHET
AVATAR
Though I’m surprised and welcome the change – this really should have been in effect last year, where unconventional BP contenders like The Wrestler, Rachel Getting Married, and *esp.* TDK and WALL-E were shut out. I do think that they should also expand the Best Director field to 10 as well – as others pointed out, otherwise half the BP field would consist of nominees that somehow “directed themselves”
The first time something like “He’s Just Not That Into You” gets a BP nod, this will make the Chocolat nomination look like Citizen Kane in comparison.
The Best Picture award is now so hopelessly watered down, it diminishes the prestige of the award.
By the way, Dark Knight heads, I hope in a few years you’ll realize that if Ledger hadn’t died before the film came out, that fewer people would have cared. More than a few people would have been willing to speak up about how awful and incoherent the final act was.
BRUNO will be nominated next year.
You can’t say that this is bad because it destroys “the prestige of the award” – CASABLANCA, GONE WITH THE WIND, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT won when there were 10 nominations. And this decisions are among the best of the Academy.
This is a good idea but I think 8 would have been better. I think it does take a lot of suspense away from the nominees. Even though The Dark Knight missed the top 5 there is no way it missed the top 10.
Actually now that I think about it, I think a BAFTA style semi-finals thing would work. Narrow it down to about 15 the pick 5 from there.
I think it is a safe bet now that Up, Push, Nine, Shutter Island, Invictus, and probaby the Lovely Bones are getting nominated. It also greatly improves the chances for a movie like Public Enemies.
I think Star Trek is kind of a long shot, but you never know. It is definatley in the running. Funny People may even make a go of it.
ok… can someone tell me 10 OSCAR MOVIES THAT DESERVED BEING NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE IN 2008??? CAUSE I DONT THINK THERE WERE 5….
Ivan, that would be a brilliant lineup and with those as best pic nominees, you can see how this will help the AMPAS look at films more like film critics would – choosing the year’s best as opposed to the year’s best “Oscar movie.”
Congratulations, AMPAS, for one more stupid decision. The Best Picture category is supposed to be something very exclusive. Spreading the “love” with 10 nominations is pure condescendence and this decision dilutes the importance of the award. For the ones who didn’t get it yet, we’re not in 1939 anymore, folks. That kind of situation comes once in a lifetime. Now, we sometimes can’t even find 5 goddamn movies deserving of nominations. With 10 nominations, I suppose much garbage will be nominated just to fill the spaces.
5, 10, 20 or 80 nominations, they’ll always be filled with custom made and predictable Weinstein productions, not comedies, documentaries or foreign films. Now I can’t even enjoy the pleasure of seeing the movies I detested being snubbed. I still watch the Oscars, just for the habit, but I stopped believing in this crap when Julia Roberts won over Ellen Burstyn in 2001 and Isabelle Huppert, the best actress of that year for The Piano Teacher, wasn’t even nominated. When Crash won over Brokeback Mountain it was really THE END for me. Now the Oscars are, for me, a huge trainwreck you can’t look away from. Thank God we still have Cannes, Venice, Berlin and the BAFTAS to love films less mainstream.
As an Oscar purist, Oscar buff, movie buff, and psycho about everything cinema I LOVEEEE THISSS!!!!!
I’ve been day dreaming about the good ole days with 10 Oscar nominated Best Pictures (there were even a couple years with 12). I would day dream about this happening to my friends, sister(s), colleagues, etc. Great, great news.
The only downside at least for 2009 it looks like a relatively weak year (again!) but the huge upside try snubbing Up in Best Picture this year, NOT GONNA HAPPEN IT. UP will be the first animated feature nominated for Best Picture in the era of the Best Animated Feature category.
And too bad this came a year late for what obviously would have gotten The Dark Knight a nomination even though it was clearly at the very worst the third Best movie last year in Oscar circles.
Okay, people need to stop thinking that just because AMPAS extended the Best Picture lineup, that all of a sudden they’re going to nominate films like Dance Flick from now on. It’s not going to happen. And what’s with all this Weinstein business?. As far as I’m concerned, the only film those people need to be tiring themselves over is Nine, nothing else.
Can we call this the THE DARK KNIGHT Rule?
i have been saying this is the way to go for years. There are over 600 films that come out every year. how can we narrow it down to 5 and expect it to be fair? the critics choice awards did this some years back and now the oscars have finally followed suit, just like the oscars stole the idea of a separate animated feature film category from the critic’s choice awards as well. I’m sure the broadcast film critics association will be patting themselves on the back for this one as well.
RRA, how do you think of so many names to add in your nick?
I love this, and I don’t think it dilutes the honor of being nominated or the “prestige” of the award.
One great thing about having 10 nominees decades ago is if people now are looking for a quick list of films to watch from a certain year, there are a lot more quality options. One reason I fell in love with movies as a kid was because I could look at a list of BP nominees and make a decision about some moves to search out. Eventually, I looked at other films, but the BP list was often a good starting point.
I don’t think Grand Illusion, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Pygmalion, Ninotchka, The Wizard of Oz, Foreign Correspondent, The Maltese Falcon, or The Magnificent Ambersons lose any historical prestige because they were best picture nominees in years with more than five without a director nomination.
Surprisingly, having ten nominees for BP won’t necessarily give us any clue as to what the five nominees would have been, since the Director nominees rarely correspond 1 to 1. It would be nice to have been able to say that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, United 93, Vera Drake, City of God, Talk to Her, Mulholland Drive, Billy Eliot, Being John Malkovich, The Truman Show, The Sweet Hereafter, Dead Man Walking, etc., etc. were best picture nominees (even in a field of 10) instead of just best director nominees.
Oh and btw to all you people that don’t like this idea, think about it this way:
Say for instance these were the ten best pic noms from last year:
The Curious Case of benjamin Button
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Dark Knight
WALL-E
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Iron Man
Ok. Now out of those ten what would you say is the least deserving of getting a nomination? The majority would probably say The Reader. Now. FYI: The Reader was nominated last year for best picture in a category of five whereas other clearly great films like the wrestler and wall-e were snubbed out of nominations. The question then must be posed as this: Are you more pissed that The Reader got a best picture nomination? OR? Are you more pissed that WALL-E or The Wrestler were snubbed? I think most people would say the latter. The reason being is because its not that The Reader was so god awful, its because The Dark Knight, WALL-E, etc. were so great that its unbelievable that they couldn’t get a nomination over The Reader. Now, instead of the people’s majority continually being pissed off every year that a certain film didn’t get in, they have now been given 5 more chances that such a thing will not happen. I’m sure people would be less aggrevated that a movie like The Reader got a best picture nomination in a ten nominee format without something like WALL-E getting snubbed out of a nomination than the aggrevation that came along with this year’s result of something like The Reader getting in and WALL-E not getting in.
All the Academy is trying to do here is trying to please the fans because of the backlash that they felt last year from all the snubs that had come last year. They’re trying to cover thier ass. Because with every “Reader” nom there will also be the inclusion of a “WALL-E” nom and those films that a truly deserving will in fact get in which has not been the case in the past.
It’s unbelievable to me with all the outrage of the Dark Knight (among others) getting snubbed last year and when AMPAS decides to find a way not let something like this doesn’t happen again, people freak out and now assume the shittiest films of all-time will now get nominations for best picture because of the insanely weird thinking that there are somehow not 10 good films every year. Anyone who thinks that now films like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are now gonna be nominated for Best picture need to seriously shut up and leave it to us true oscarwatchers that something like that couldnt possibly happen if you follow the race at all.
One trivia note: Two directors, Gregory La Cava (My Man Godfrey) and Michael Curtiz (Angels with Dirty Faces) were the only directors to be nominated for directing a film not nominated for best picture in a year when there were more than 5 BP nominees. So, I guess we can’t rule out the possibility of a director nom without a BP nom even in a larger BP field.
Marianne,
I make your words mine.
I CAN´T BELIEVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After 66 years… nobody could imagine this.
I´m speachless.
Really, nobody knows anything!
I can’t believe people are still pissed at The Reader. It clearly WAS one of the best films of the year, it certainly WAS better than that year’s *ahem* “winner” (not as good as Wall*E, though)
T.
Sorry, but The Reader = ass
The Reader sucked and Kate Winslet wasn’t great in it. Average performance compared to her better ones. David Kross was the only great thing about it.
i am gutted. What a stupid idea AMPAS, the most important category, the Best Picture Race, has now been mutilated.
Im not a big fan of changing history’s records either. This is garbage.
You guys are completely wrong, this will make the category even more competitive because more films that would never before have stood a chance at a nomination will be throwing their names into the fold and fighting for a nod. Theres never been any complaining when critics groups put out a top ten and then announce a winner, just think of it the same way.
These ten films are the ten best of the year according to this group the Oscars, and then the members of this group will vote for what they believe to be the best. I guarantee you that with this rule in place, votes will be split and there will be suprising winners as a result. With more possobilities to chose from, the likelyhood that Academy members will vote on their own personal favorite will skyrocket which is a good thing, rather than have members vote on the more popular movie when their favorite is not a choice on the ballot. I guarrantee that had this been in place last year with say The Dark Knight, Wall-e, The Wrestler, Doubt and Gran Torino as the other five, Slumdog Millionaire would not have been as much of a sure thing to win, especially since the older members could have gotten behind Gran Torino, while the Actors may have put their weight behind The Wrestler and all other groups could have came behind Wall-e or The Dark Knight.
With 10 nominees in place, voters would probably be more inclined to vote based on their own oppinion rather than succumb to a Slumdog like sheep mentality. And by doing this, the odds of a better movie or a more unique film winning would be exponentially greater.
Over at my blog The Oscar Hut, the first part of my State of The Race: Best Picture 2009 article is up detailing in alphabetical order the ten movies I think will be nominated, from Avatar to Up. Along with this article there are polls, reviews, predictions, site links and much more. So come check it out and let me know what you think wheter it be a sentence or a three page e-mail positive or negative, whatever it may be, only at The Oscar Hut
http://www.theoscarhut.blogspot.com
tjpratt@bellsouth.net
Bullshit. This should have been done two years ago, or even last year for that matter, when exceptional films really were been squeezed out of the Best Picture race. This move comes too late, and what if (like last year) there really aren’t that many excellent movies to choose from?
This seems like a ploy to get more people to watch, but I bet it blows up in the Academy’s face, because the voters are still likely to just pick 10 movies that the general public haven’t really seen.
“You guys are completely wrong, this will make the category even more competitive because more films that would never before have stood a chance at a nomination will be throwing their names into the fold and fighting for a nod. ”
It won`t make any difference because BP nominee that doesn`t have BD nom is dead in the water. And this will create at least 5 movies that won`t have BD noms or even BD and BS/BAS noms. The only question here remains whose votes they will split but I don`t think they can spoil things all that much since it will be obvious that they are nominated only to fill in the spots, show how generous AMPAS is and so on. This is what I`m affraid of, that it`s smoke and mirrors but no real improvement in competition department. But I admit we won`t know if it`s a good idea or not until it`s done.
I guess this means that we’ll have 5 nomineess not getting directing nominations and thus more than likely not winning best picture. So despite the expansion of the category nothing essentially changes with culling a winner.
It’s ridiculous to think there are not 10 great movies every year. Whether the Academy will do any better picking 10 brilliant films than they did trying to pick 5 is another question, but anybody who can’t find 10 genius movies every year isn’t looking past the multiplex.
It doesn’t matter to me if a movie’s chances of winning Best Picture are pretty slim if there’s no Best Director nomination to go with it. The expansion to 10 nominees has no effect on the fact that there are always bound to be 2 or 3 or 4 better than all the others. It’s always been that way, and always will be. 10 nominations doesn’t have to mean all 10 have an equal chance. Did anybody think Frost/Nixon had a chance in hell of winning Best Picture? That was never gonna happen.
So what the argument? There should only be nominees who have an equal chance of winning? By that logic, there should have been only 4 nominees last year. (Atonement didn’t have a Best Director nomination, but for me it had the second-best shot at winning. No way were Michael Clayton or Juno ever winning best Best Picture, and There Will Be Blood was too artsy to win as well.)
There are movies every year that get a BP nomination without a BD nom to go with it. The Director-less movie can still deserve to be called one of the year’s best. It’s still a great honor, and what’s wrong with honoring 10 of the best instead of 5?
But having 10 nominees mixes things up radically. 10 nominees means that it’ll be mathematically possible for a movie to win Best Picture with only 10% of the vote + 1. (i.e., with 5821 AMPAS members, 9 nominees could conceivably tie for 2nd place with 582 votes apiece, and the winner would only need 583 votes to take home the trophy.)
That’s pretty unlikely to happen too, but I like the relative chaos and uncertainty of the possibility.
Well said Ryan! btw, post the official Inglorious Basterds trailer if you’ve got the time.
There are more than 10 great movies for year, Ryan, but these movies usually are not of the taste of the AMPAS voters. By the way, their taste is so predictable that, every year, all the studios make certain movies exclusively focused on the Oscars, movies made intentionally to look like “genius movies” (see Frost/Nixon or The Reader or even Revolutionary Road). Some directors don’t even give a damn anymore to the viewers in general, as long as the AMPAS voters like their movies and tell them what amazing directors they are. But you know it better than us, Ryan.
These five extra nominations are more space for this kind of movie. Not for low budget comedies, not for brilliant documentaries like The Fog Of War (that would never stand a chance in the BP category) or foreign pictures (can I say how lame the Best Foreign Picture category is?). The AMPAS is way too stuck up to nominate some movies that really deserve recognition.
Considering these conditions and their fear of everything that goes beyond their rules, I pretty much believe that they’ll have a real hard time finding 10 TRULY good movies that fit in their description of adequate. Which takes us back to my point: they’ll fill all these blanks with some pretty forgettable “made-for-Oscar” movies like the already mentioned Frost/Nixon or The Reader.
I’m surprised the response to this has been so calm. Especially when compared to Nathaniel’s site which looks like a scene from Blindness.
“There are more than 10 great movies for year, Ryan, but these movies usually are not of the taste of the AMPAS voters.”
You’re right. But here’s how I see it, Marianne. We should give AMPAS voters credit for doing better lately, and try to stop thinking that they all have the same taste. We’ve seen such a shift in the quality of nominees these past few years, I get the feeling AMPAS membership is torn between two conflicting generations with opposing attitudes.
So maybe the younger, hipper branch of the Academy realized it might be years before the more traditional voters are outnumbered (through attrition), so they might have come to this conclusion: The only way we’re ever going to have 5 top-quality nominees is if we double the number of openings. That way the traditionalists can have their Frost/Nixons and Finding Neverlands (and the studios can get a nibble or two for their bait), leaving 5 new slots to filled by worthy movies that would otherwise have been pushed out of the running altogether.
In short, the only way to guarantee 5 great sharp-edged nominees is give the traditional voters more room to toss their fluffy throw-pillows.
Does that make sense? I probably need to think this through, and rewrite it in better terms.
This is the best Academy news ever! It’s shaking things up in the BEST possible way. So exciting. Now if they’d only allow multiple nominations for actors…
Am I the only one who thinks that since animated films have their own category, they should NOT be considered for best picture? (watch how many enemies I make with that query…)
I’m not very thrilled with this decision. I suppose this debate (like all contemporary debates I presume) is between the conservatives and progressives.
Progressives are probably in a euphoric state at the moment. “Finally!” they exclaim, “most deserving films will not be snubbed.” Conservatives (such as I) are groaning. “What is this?” they ask, “the Golden Globes?”
On its face, ten Best Picture films seems a bit overwhelming. It’s hard enough trying to catch the current five before the awards. Not only see them, but debate them, and adore them. With ten, there will be even less debate and adoration. Prestige, believe it or not, is a major factor as to why the Academy Awards is still considered heads and shoulders above all other awards bodies. It’s simply taken for granted that the five films recognized are the best of the year, “filler” nominees are a rare breed. Not so for the Globes, Grammy’s, Emmy’s or Tony’s. What we’ll have with ten nominees is the problem the Globes have had forever. An oversaturation of nominations, no prestige, a stepping-stone award…only in this case, the Oscar is the end of the line. Seriously though, can anyone name all of the, what, 12 best picture nominees (comedy & drama) from the Globes two years ago? I doubt it. I bet we could conjure up the five Oscar nominees however.
What ten will do is either cover the “snub” quotia and create filler spots or miss the mark altogether and disprove the theory behind expanding the nomination set. Neither seems like a solution.
If anything, expanding the acting categories to 6 or 7 would be a better fix. Picture the stay the most exclusive, instead now we’ll still have the traditional five nominees and another five bastardized, ghettoized, nominees. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
One double-edged effect of the 10 Best Picture Nominees rule is that more films by female directors can be acknowledged – The Hurt Locker (Bigelow), Bright Star (Campion), The Vintner’s Luck (Caro) – but by keeping Best Director at just 5 nominees, the Academy won’t have to fully honour them.
“Seriously though, can anyone name all of the, what, 12 best picture nominees (comedy & drama) from the Globes two years ago?”
That’s true, I had to look them up. But when I did I see that for every Great Debaters or Charlie Wilson’s War the Golden Globes do manage to pay due respect to Eastern Promises, Revolutionary Road, In Bruges, American Gangster, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Hairspray.
The GG are a pretty good example of what me might expect — both good and bad. It’s only logical that twice as many nominees will bring us twice as many duds (we get one a year now; so I’m prepared for two head-scratches in 2010) — but there will be more room for neglected genre films and comedies too. Fingers crossed, right?
This is truly crap!
The new Hollywood Teen Awards or whatever…crap!
Why not 20? TDK would have a chance, holy crap!
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
this is bad news!
I just can’t wait to see what a 10-nominee version of a dark horse is.
In support of the idea, I’m having fun thinking of worthy unorthodox Oscar movies that would likely have landed nominations over the years:
Pillow Talk
Yellow Submarine
Airplane!
Brazil
The Princess Bride
The Lion King
Toy Story
Pirates of Caribbean
Fahrenheit 9/11
Children of Men
(and that’s not even counting the foreign contenders)
Plus famous snubs (or oversights)
Singin’ in the Rain
2001: A Space Odyssey
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Blue Velvet
Do the Right Thing
Almost Famous
Dreamgirls
Who knows? And its arguable that many of these films could even have won.
And don’t forget that this is how the Academy worked for more than a decade.
And films like this still won:
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
GONE WITH THE WIND
REBECCA
CASABLANCA
Of course, you also had these:
CAVALCADE
THE GREAT ZIEGFELD
But at least this way you could still have The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Top Hat, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Ox-Bow Incident, and The Great Dictator honored with a nomination. Mark my words: only The Wizard of Oz would likely have enjoyed a strong enough studio push to have a clear shot at a top five. The inferior films will fade away, but for the enduring ones, it’s a good way to give them a nod.
Also, I think that the National Board of Review is probably a more accurate model than the Golden Globes, since they have no genre criteria (do we really think the Academy would nominate 5 comedy/musicals?)
This is a travesti. Because only the nominated films for Best Directing have a chance to win Best Picture.
VHS, you’re Driving Miss Daisy over a cliff.
Driving Miss Daisy was an exception. It’s obvious the race only has 2 ou 3 real competitors. If usually 2 of them are there to fill the ballot, next year there will be 7.
Well, Driving Miss Daisy isn’t the only exception of the rule – it has happened three times over the history of the oscars….
The reasoning behind this move by the Academy seems pretty clear to me. As Bambi suggests above, it appears AMPAS wants to revitalize interest in the Oscarcast as well as the Oscars and films in general. In other words, it’s all about money and keeping the Oscar brand alive, IMO.
Do I like this? I dunno. The last time 10 films were nominated was during an era when more films were being made. So it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with excellence but, rather, generating buzz.
“The last time 10 films were nominated was during an era when more films were being made.”
How do you figure – looking back on 1939, for example, 72 films were made in that year alone….now take a look at 2008 – hundreds of films were released in that calendar year.
Maybe I’m wrong, filmboymichael. My impression has been that, in general, fewer films are being made in recent years compared with the “golden age.”
here’s a great source for this kind of info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_in_film
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_in_film
it’s quite staggering the amount of films that are released today….
Despite the comparison of specific years past and present, I’m still not convinced. I’ve read in various places that — in general — the number of films eligible for Academy Awards is fewer in recent times compared with the early years. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do the research.
I love this… there have definitely been more than 5 films the last few years that were deserving enough to at least get a nomination. I don’t think 10 is too many… any more than that would be pushing it, but 10 is about right.
NOW, having said that… I would like this decision by A.M.P.A.S. to lead to them getting rid of the Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, and Documentary Feature categories.
With 10 nominees, you would think that any deserving films from these categories should be able to make their way into the Best Picture category… but then again, you never know.
Let’s not debate whether there are as many films produced now as in the days of the golden age, but celebrate this wonderful opportunity for some terrific films to finally get the attention they deserve. This is incredible news!!!
the research is easily found – in 2004, for example, 267 films were eligible for academy awards….i’m sure that number was quite a bit higher last year.
This is quite interesting news! It seems like AMPAS may be reacting to public response regarding some of their recent choices and snubs. They may have lost some of their potential audience with their exclusion of great, but also popular films from the BP race, and they want to reconcile this before risking loosing more.
I’m not sure how this will affect the competitive nature of the race. There will always be favorites, but at least more films and varied film genres will be invited to the big dance. Last year there would have been many more happy folks if WALL-E, TDK and The Wresler would have at least been nominated. This would have also increased their ratings.
Not a good idea. Imagine how hard records are to be met when now they can easily be broken or tied. Beauty and the beast…will obviously not become the sole animated Best picture nominee…if we have 10…chances will be doubled for some in the future. Other than that, what about the previous amazing films that should have made it to the top 10? If it was like this ever since. Well…the poor great films (eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, the dark knight, wall-e) they cannot use the tag “OSCAR BEST PICTURE NOMINEE”…while the lucky films 6-10 in the future…can take advantage of it. SO WRONG. If it has been more than a decade…it should remain this way.
This won’t last more than three years, tops. Mark my words.
Does anyone think that films like Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, Eternal Sunshine, City of God, Adaptation, Dark Knight, The Wrestler NOT making it into the Top 5 makes them all the more classic? Fuels up the love for them even more?
Its like if a great film is ’snubbed’ by the academy, a small cult is formed in reaction, and that may be BETTEr for the film’s legacy than an Academy nod – especially now that the pretige is diminished.
This is a very interesting decision from the academy, though, and I am happy to see where this will take us next year. (Does this mean The Hangover has a chance at Best Pic..?)
Will be interesting to see if they embrace more indie fare, or hype-of-the-moment popular stuff (although both happen already…)
I dunno how I feel about this – snubs are kind of part of the game – don’t you think we’ll miss them?!
People need to wake up and realize that IMPAS is nothing but a sham which keeps $$$ in the retirement funds of those horny old men who are in charge of voting.
How can a movie like Crapdog millionaire win best picture and a movie like City of God gets very little recognition? how does JenniFAT HUGE-son win as oscar over Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza in Babel and Cate Blanchett in Notes on a scandal? the history books will clearly laugh at such foolhardy. I’ve always said the globes are better because at least they don’t take themselves too seriously.
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