Conventional wisdom says that the nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture skew toward a balance between critical acclaim and box office success. Among the 2016 nominees, the average Metacritic score was 84.25, and the average U.S. box office take was $98 million. Art house fans know that even the most lauded films need to reach a significant audience in order to make the cut -- Carol and 45 Years were this year's most glaring casualties -- but less commonly acknowledged is a corollary: that highly-praised, widely-seen films risk being excluded if they don't fit the Academy's image.
The table below includes the 8 Best Picture nominees (highlighted), the 5 highest-grossing films of the year, and the 5 best-rated. Because those categories overlap, the total number of films comes to 16. Mad Max: Fury Road and Spotlight, both nominees, were also among the year's top 5-rated films. Inside Out was among both the biggest money-makers and the most acclaimed, though it was not nominated.
The table below includes the 8 Best Picture nominees (highlighted), the 5 highest-grossing films of the year, and the 5 best-rated. Because those categories overlap, the total number of films comes to 16. Mad Max: Fury Road and Spotlight, both nominees, were also among the year's top 5-rated films. Inside Out was among both the biggest money-makers and the most acclaimed, though it was not nominated.
Among the films here not nominated for Best Picture, three stick out like sore thumbs: Inside Out, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Creed. Each received acclaim on par with the nominees, and each outperformed the nominees' box office average, but none gained the necessary traction within the Academy to receive a nomination. At this point, it's well-acknowledged that Pixar films, despite routinely running circles around the competition at the box office and with critics, are not considered Best Picture material by the Academy. And while it's also rare for a "genre" film -- which both Star Wars and Creed are, to different extents -- to receive nominations, Mad Max and The Martian would seem to indicate that that rule may be not be so rigid. Rather, in the year in which filmgoers recognized that #oscarssowhite, the most obvious thing Star Wars and Creed have in common is black protagonists.
Of course, any given year might be too small of a sample for us to draw conclusions about the Academy's biases. On the flip side, given that that they chose to only nominate eight films for ten available best picture slots, maybe it's not.
-Paul
Of course, any given year might be too small of a sample for us to draw conclusions about the Academy's biases. On the flip side, given that that they chose to only nominate eight films for ten available best picture slots, maybe it's not.
-Paul
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