For decades in Hollywood, keen-eyed movie fans could spot an Academy Awards hopeful from a mile away. Usually released in the few months leading up to the awards, the movies were highbrow, serious, often historical, aimed at a more “adult” audience, the kind that might fork over ticket money to catch a mid-afternoon matinée screening. They often had recognizable stars, but they were rarely the biggest releases of the year, nor were they the smallest. Several terms popped up to describe these kinds of movies, like “prestige pictures” or, more commonly, “Oscar bait.”
While these kinds of movies do still occasionally break through (hello, Green Book), and last year’s big wins for Oppenheimer show that Hollywood isn’t giving up its historical epics any time soon, the idea of what a big Oscar night winner looks like has changed a lot in recent years. More offbeat, unconventional films have taken home top prizes in the last decade, alongside intimate indies made far from Hollywood’s prying eyes, with this year’s winner Anora being a little bit of both. For movie fans tired of the same kinds of films taking home all the statuettes, it’s been a welcome change, one that reflects the changing face of the Academy itself as well as the movies as a whole.
The Academy’s Changing Tastes
For many years, the voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was made up almost entirely of one type of Hollywood professional. Just over a decade ago, the voting body was nearly entirely white (94%) and male (76%), with an average age of 63 years old. Since then, pushback has led to an effort to induct more diverse voting members, with the Academy pledging in 2016 to double its female and non-white membership by 2020. It seems like they haven’t quite lived up to that promise, but there have been significant gains in recent years. Currently, 35% of the voting body are women, and 20% are non-white.
Obviously, there’s still a long way to go before true parity is achieved, but this shift towards a slightly more diverse Academy has already had a big impact. In the past decade, plenty of unique and innovative films have taken home Best Picture, from small-scale productions like 2016’s winner Moonlight to 2020’s Nomadland to 2021’s CODA. This year, Anora, an independent film made for the small (by Hollywood standards) sum of $6 million, joins the ranks of indie productions that have beaten out the more conventional fare like La La Land or West Side Story, both of which might have cleaned up in a previous era.
Parasite’s Oscar-night dominance back in 2019 signaled that the floor had been opened up for more international productions to take the top prizes, though this largely hasn’t played out so far. However, Parasite was one of the more deserving Best Picture winners of all time, an undeniably brilliant piece of filmmaking that had no choice but to run away with the ceremony. It’s possible that its success opened a door for another wonderfully audacious film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, to win big in 2022. Even Oppenheimer, while feeling like a more traditional Oscar-type movie to win Best Picture, was still bold and unconventional enough to feel exciting.
In a previous era, a movie like Anora taking home the top prize (not to mention wins for director, actress, editing, and screenplay) would have been seen as a major upset. But in the context of the past decade or so of Oscars ceremonies, it fits right in among its peers.
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Changes at the Oscars Reflect a Changing Hollywood
It’s probably a bit too facile to say that a slightly more diverse Academy is the sole reason for this change in Oscar tastes, but it does feel like a significant shift, one that it’s hard to imagine the more stodgy Academy of yesteryear would make without some big updates behind the scenes. These shifts are reflected in Hollywood as a whole, an industry still finding ways to adapt to changes within the movie-going public and the way movies are viewed.
Streamers continue to take a bigger piece of the movie-viewing pie, with Netflix’s Emilia Pérez leading the charge as the film with the most nominations this year. As a result, the idea of what movies support a trip to the theater and which are better off being watched at home has changed a lot, with Hollywood focusing its multiplex efforts on big spectacle and familiar IP. Many of this year’s Oscar speeches revolved around the theme of urging viewers to see movies in the theater, a further sign that most people’s relationship to watching movies has changed dramatically in recent years.
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As movie viewing moves increasingly away from the monopoly of the big theater chain, it’s fitting that the movies that take home Oscars would change too, from the kind of easily parodied prestige fare to a more varied—and honestly, more fun—array. It’s no secret that the movie business is in a time of major transition right now, and it’s anybody’s guess how that will all play out. At the very least, some really good movies are getting their due.
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