Readers of this site will know I’ve been talking about the pendulum shift for some time now. It’s coming. It’s only a matter of when. The last one of these I lived through was coming out of the 1960s, into the 1970s and through the 1980s. If you look at advertisements of the 1970s, the casting of films, even the Oscars you can see a conscious effort to be more inclusive. They didn’t use those words but it was apparent that they were trying to make things less white and less male. This was because the women’s movement, the Black Power movement, and other counter-culture revolutionary movements demanded change.
But at some point, American culture simply became exhausted by the counter culture. The hippies splintered off and went to California to find themselves, joined cults – there was the Manson murders in 1969. There was the end of Vietnam. There was Watergate and there was the Jimmy Carter administration which wasn’t exactly kick-starting progress. The shift was obvious to anyone who lived through it. By the time Reagan rose to power in the 1980s America was definitely headed in a much different direction. It was a time of individualism, capitalism, and market-driven everything, including box office.
Now that we had Star Wars and Jaws topping the box office in the late 70s, we were moving slowly towards to the era where blockbusters dominated Hollywood. The Academy was not quite in tune with this shift, and in fact, they kind of turtled in the 1990s. That would also only intensify heading through the millennium. There was a split between box office, money, and the Oscars and quality.
Some of it had to do with how the movie business was changing: tent poles, international box office, branded entertainment. But some of it had to do with how insulated the Oscar class, if you will, was becoming. This was made worse by the Academy pushing their date back by one month, which essentially took the Oscars out of the hands of the general public and put them squarely in the hands of the tastemakers, critics, and industry voters.
But things did use to be different. Movies did use to be made for audiences all over the country and those films made an impact. They weren’t simply magic mirrors to tell a specific class of people who and what they were. They were stories that moved the needle and were remembered long past the years in which they were released.
Here are some reference points.
*also nominated for Best Picture/+also won Best Picture. In parenthesis their box office rank the year they were released.
1970-Love Story*/Patton (#4)
1971-Billy Jack/The French Connection (#4)
1972-The Godfather/The Godfather
1973-The Exorcist*/The Sting (#2)
1974-Blazing Saddles/The Godfather Part II (#6)
1975-Jaws*/Cuckoo’s Nest (#2)
1976-Rocky/Rocky
1977-Star Wars*/Annie Hall (#12)
1978-Grease/The Deer Hunter (#8)
1979-Superman/Kramer vs. Kramer (#27/#4)
And then things start to really shift. The box office doesn’t matter quite as much the year the film was released. It is after the film wins Best Picture that it makes its money – the second number is the rank the following year.
1979-Superman/Kramer vs. Kramer (#27/4)
1980-The Empire Strikes Back/Ordinary People (#10)
1981-Superman II/Chariots of Fire (#56/11)
1982-E.T.*/Gandhi (#129/14)
1983-Return of the Jedi/Terms of Endearment (#22/9)
1984-Ghostbusters/Amadeus (#56/26)
1985-Back to the Future/Out of Africa (#55/9)
1986-Top Gun/Platoon (#157/2)
1987-Beverly Hills Cop II/The Last Emperor (#126/24)
1988-Who Framed Roger Rabbit/Rain Man (#33/4)
1989-Batman/Driving Miss Daisy (#166/8)
1990-Ghost*/Dances with Wolves (#17/6)
So obviously, you can see that in the 1970s the movies that drove the Oscars were the movies that mostly lit the box office on fire prior to the Oscars. Heading into the 1980s, that reversed itself to films winning Best Picture then going on to do well at the box office. There was value in winning Best Picture that meant money, along with prestige.
Now let’s do the rest for the hell of it.
1991-Terminator 2/Silence of the Lambs (#4)
1992-Batman Returns/Unforgiven (#17/61)
1993-Jurassic Park/Schindler’s List (#155/12) – Spielberg had number one box office and Best Picture winner.
1994-The Lion King/Forrest Gump (#2/58)
1995-Batman Forever/Braveheart (#21/142)
1996-Independence Day/The English Patient (#76/32)
1997-Men in Black/Titanic (#7/1)
1998-Titanic*/Shakespeare in Love (#156/19)
1999-The Phantom Menace/American Beauty (#27/39)
2000-How the Grinch Stole Christmas/Gladiator (#3)
2001- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone/A Beautiful Mind (#116/10)
2002-Spider-Man/Chicago n/a/8)
2003-Finding Nemo/ROTK (#4/14)
2004-Shrek 2/Million Dollar Baby (n/a/19)
2005-Revenge of the Sith/Crash (#48)
2006-Dead Man’s Chest/The Departed (#15)
2007-Spider-Man 3/No Country for Old Men #59/90)
2008-The Dark Knight/Slumdog Millionaire (#117/27)
2009-Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen/The Hurt Locker (#146/187)
2010-Avatar*/The King’s Speech (#127/22)
2011-Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows/The Artist (#169/86)
2012-The Avengers/Argo (#25/99)
2013-Iron Man 3/12 Years a Slave (#83/121)
2014-Guardians of the Galaxy/Birdman (#104/111)
2015-Jurassic World/Spotlight (#94/115)
2016-Finding Dory/Moonlight (#135/119)
2017-The Last Jedi/The Shape of Water (#118/63)
2018-Black Panther*/Green Book (#88/55)
2019-Avengers: Endgame/Parasite (#98/19)
I think it’s pretty clear that the Oscars changing their date really did spark a massive divide between the public and the Oscars. I’ve been making this point for some time but here you have solid proof of the growing disconnect. Not only is the box office not important to the Best Picture winners, but even winning an Oscar for Best Picture doesn’t move the needle in any way.
The date change was around 2004. From then on, you see very little crossover, but for every once in a while. It was already moving in this direction, obviously, with the rise of the blockbuster, but the Oscars have become the Bates Motel of movies. You only get to them if you stumble upon them. They’ve long since been moved off the path of regular traffic. They’re overseen by nervous Norman types who may or may not have skeletons lurking in the basement. But I digress.
I guess the question is whether this clear shift we’re moving through right now that is likely to topple the left, at least politically, maybe culturally, will have any impact on the film industry or the Oscars. Meaning, how long will “social justice” have its thumb on art? On entertainment? On voting? On the awards themselves? If it continues, the Oscars will likely become more cut off from the general public as it’s starting to become clear that the pendulum is about to swing away from that kind of thinking — at least that is how it feels to me, and history would indicate that it’s heading towards that moment.
But probably, that is not happening this year. This year’s race will be not so different from last year’s – but last year’s really did seem like game over. Almost. Not quite, but almost.
There are some good signs this year, not in terms of what will win Best Picture (although both Belfast and King Richard are certainly crowd pleasers that would draw decent box office, particularly King Richard) but certainly what will be nominated. I’m thinking of Dune, perhaps. With an even ten they could expand to even include, say, No Time to Die. The Last Duel is a Big Oscar Movie that might seep out into the general public once it hits streaming.
But we’re a very long way away from a year where a movie like The Godfather could win Best Picture, top the box office and be remembered as one of the greatest films of all time.
Here are my predictions for this week, for what it’s worth.
Best Picture
Belfast
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Dune
West Side Story
The Last Duel
In the Heights
Nightmare Alley
Best Director
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Pedro Almodovar, Parallel Mothers
Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Guillermo Del Toro, Nightmare Alley
Alt: Reinado Marcus Green, King Richard, Ridley Scott, The Last Duel; Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza, Steven Spielberg, West Side Story
Best Actress
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Jennifer Hudson, Respect
Jodie Comer, The Last Duel
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Alts: Olivia Colman, The Last Daughter; Jessica Chastain, Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Actor
Will Smith, King Richard
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Denzel Washington, Tragedy of Macbeth
Matt Damon, The Last Duel
Alts: Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos; Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley
Supporting Actress
Caitriona Balfe, Belfast
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Ann Dowd, Mass
Marlee Matlin, CODA
Kirsten Dunst, Power of the Dog
Alts: Judi Dench, Belfast; Martha Plimpton, Mass; Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Supporting Actor
Ciaran Hinds, Belfast
Ben Affleck, The Last Duel or The Tender Bar
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
Richard Jenkins, The Humans
Jared Leto, House of Gucci
Alt: Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley
Adapted Screenplay
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
Dune
The Last Duel
CODA
Alt: The Lost Daughter
Original Screenplay
Belfast
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Parallel Mothers
Mass
Alts: Spencer, Being the Ricardos
Cinematography
Dune
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Power of the Dog
Belfast
Nightmare Alley
Alts: West Side Story, The Last Duel
Costumes
Cruella
House of Gucci
Spencer
Nightmare Alley
Dune
Editing
Dune
Belfast
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
The Last Duel
Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Last Duel
Cruella
House of Gucci
Sound
West Side Story
Dune
No Time to Die
The Last Duel
Eternals
Visual Effects
Dune
Eternals
Shang-Chi
Nightmare Alley
The Green Knight
Animated Feature
Luca
Flee
Encanto
Mitchells vs. The Machines
Spirit Untamed
