Why Are The Oscars Like That?

[@ThomasFlight]

See My 2024 Picks and Predictions: Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/thomasflight-who-should-win-at-the-oscars-2024 Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/who-should-win-98423359

[@yodude8686]

I just like that "Meg 2: The Trench" submitted itself for Best Picture. We should all possess such unearned confidence

[@nms7872]

Must be contractual. Ultimately everyone who made it knows it wil never touch oscars at all

[@parkersmith8578]

Or such a self aware sense of humor lol

[@Little1Cave]

One thing that frustrated me this year was that three of the animated movies this year (Across the Spider-Verse, The Boy and the Heron, and Elemental) had the potential to be nominated in other categories, most notably Original Score, and there was just…nothing. It was Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio all over again. Two years in a row where animation wasn’t seen worth recognizing anywhere. Sure there were some years where animation didn’t get recognition, but two in a row?? The last time that happened was in the 80s, and since then animation has been blessed with: Disney’s Renaissance and Revival eras, Pixar’s 3D animation, increase of competitive studios and voices with DreamWorks, Illumination, Laika, etc., foreign studios such as Ghibli, Aardman, and Cartoon Saloon finding American audiences, independent animation finding a wider reach, the founding of the Annie Awards, and of course the actual creation of the Best Animated Film Oscar. Animation has been a major part of the most financially successful, critically-acclaimed, and audience-beloved movies ever made. And it’s tiring that the film industry as a whole hasn’t caught on to that.

[@Moloch187]

Elemental was only average, nothing impressive. The joke I made about fire being racist towards water in the first scene was basically the plot of the film.

[@saoirsedeltufo7436]

Personally thought Boy and the Heron had a pretty poor score and poor use of music - especially for a Ghibli film, where they often excel

[@M_k-zi3tn]

I was genuinely surprised that Spiderverse wasnt nominated for best Original score but Indiana Jones was nominated. What madness is this.

[@Little1Cave]

@@Moloch187 I thought Elemental was average as well, but Thomas Newman’s score did make the shortlist along with Joe Hisaishi and Daniel Pemberton. The Academy had THREE options and ultimately decided on none.

[@Little1Cave]

@@M_k-zi3tn I was genuinely surprised as well. There seemed to be so much support for Pemberton at BAFTA, Critics Choice, and Golden Globes. It was literally one of the best aspects of the movie. But sure, I guess give John Williams (a composer I DO love and respect) a legacy nomination for his “retirement”.

[@madmanonyt9943]

I hate the fact that The Boy and the Heron and Across the Spider-Verse were ignored completely outside of Best Animated Feature, yet mediocre flicks like Napolean and Maestro got so much love.

[@GuineaPigEveryday]

10000% Maestro doesn't deserve to be on there, I think most people agree on that, but Bradley Cooper has clout and probably paid a lot of marketing money to ensure Oscars voters saw it. Napoleon is dogshit, but its Ridley Scott so we HAVE to include him. But besides those two stinkers, I think a lot of people agree the nominations this year were genuinely quite great, there's absolutely snubs, Past Lives for one, I see people mentioning Iron Claw and Barbie too. But there's been far worse years.

[@matfresco]

@@GuineaPigEveryday I love love loved Maestro. I genuinely think its a masterpiece. The blocking, the direction, the performances, the nuance, the script, the music... I really think its the movie of the year. ... Napoleon was dog shit though. Out of interest what didn't you like about Maestro?

[@DizzyBusy]

Maestro had a clear vision, I think it's a matter of taste. Napoleon, on the other hand, um, it's hard to believe the same director did Blade Runner. What happened to Ridley Scott, really?

[@matfresco]

@@DizzyBusy Funnily enough I was think the same thing. But take a look at his filmography. There are a handful of fabulous movies but a lot of workmanlike dross too

[@DizzyBusy]

@@matfresco At this point, he's made more bad movies than good movies! I'm sure he has die hard fans out there, just not in me

[@diethermanicat]

The real travesty about Academy is that they don't include Best Stunt Coordination in their categories.

[@ThomasFlight]

Totally agree.

[@mollywoodshots6503]

Also they don't give awards for SFX & VFX separately

[@Michaelonyoutub]

It is very hard to do that without potentially incentivizing people putting themselves in more danger than they normally are comfortable with. If a film wants to push for that award, they would feel like they have to take on extra risk to truly impress the judges with their stunts, which means that reward is then rewarding people needlessly risking their lives, which is absolutely terrible. Any way you try to implement something like that always has that problem and it seems impossible to completely avoid. It is also the reason the academy generally avoids awarding awards posthumously, as it can potentially incentivize people to treat themselves like shit in the name of a performance, just like a stunt award.

[@AfutureV]

My argument against that category is that it would be highly skewed towards the Action genre, making it more appropriate for a specialist awards ceremony. I do not think any other categories right now are that skewed towards a genre, most would be Costume towards period films.

[@glittery_fairy]

Also, the animation category. The way it works makes it just a "good children movie that's animated that my kid loved" category. As animated movies can win best picture, the animation category should judge only the animation, I think.

[@Advent3546]

All Oscar campaigns should only be like David Lynch's

[@will-qw4ep]

For your consideration... Laura Dern

[@BaileeWalsh]

🐄

[@teamblue2431]

I didn't get the point of it.

[@gaylord_focker]

​​@@teamblue2431I don't think there was one either. It's just a funny and creative way for campaigning Laura Dern's performance.

[@junepassingthrouthegate8810]

I love that guy. He also makes music, they sound like his movies.

[@Mr_Case_Time]

‘Anatomy of the academy’ is now my favorite combination of words.

[@K.A.Joseph]

I just watched the film (Anatomy of A Murder) And I think it’s reference to that. It’s great movie by the way I’d recommend it to you.

[@Pallialbertti]

​@@K.A.Joseph I think it's a reference to the movie "anatomy of a fall". It released last year, so it would make sense to be a reference to that

[@K.A.Joseph]

@@Pallialbertti that also makes sense, but Anatomy of murder is genre classic and well known film and usually it gets referenced a lot.

[@Mirrale]

@@K.A.Josephyeah but Anatomy of a Fall is nominated for best picture right now and a likely candidate to get snubbed. If there’s any reference to Anatomy of a Murder here it’s indirectly via Anatomy of a Fall whose name is clearly a nod to that movie.

[@hwizell7478]

Saul Bass would have designed the sh1t out of that movie poster

[@VoltaDoMar]

One weird trick to win Best Picture every time: cast John Cazale in your movie.

[@Wesleyminaker]

Aight imma do that next year

[@INRamos13]

​@@Wesleyminakerhe dead

[@Roger_Waters_Broken_Balls]

Already patched

[@krombopulos_michael]

I keep telling you, he's 88 years old, and he's dead!

[@diethermanicat]

This guy posted a comment before the video was uploaded. How?

[@prateektripathi8052]

One thing that the Academy can do that would benefit a lot of cinephiles and ultimately lead to increased viewership and interest in the awards , is to get the previous winners of technical awards to do breakdowns and analysis of either current nominees or famous/ all time great movies. The acting, directing and Best Picture nominations are easy to decipher for the general public. But the average moviegoer is not familiar with the technical aspects of filmmaking and the nominees in those categories. This would help the audience appreciate the movie more. Also, making it compulsory for a movie to be eligible to be nominated being the release of home media would go a very long way in helping the industry.

[@c.m.9369]

The thing is, you are equating „leading to increased viewership“ and „benefit cinephiles“. The problem is, I don‘t think the Academy sees it the same way. They don‘t want to appeal to cinephiles, they want to appeal to the mainstream audience to increase the viewership. Remember when two years ago, they REMOVED some awards from the awards show and cut them together in a montage to make the show „flow better“ or whatever? They didn‘t REMOVE AWARDS FROM AN AWARDS SHOW because they wanted to appeal to cinephiles who love the movies. They did so, because those awards were considered „small awards“ or „boring“ for the regular mainstream viewer and they thought they could get more viewers by leaning more into the „show“ aspect. What you describe would be great for somebody like me who is interested in this stuff! It won‘t do a thing for the mainstream audience which the Academy tries to target all the time.

[@AfutureV]

That last part raises the ceiling even more for independent films getting recognition, depending on how wide you mean home media.

[@Michaelonyoutub]

@@AfutureV Probably just means it is widely available, like on a streaming service or something, and not only being showed at film festivals

[@OfficialROZWBRAZEL]

Great idea! If they were interested in any of that, they would have done it by now.

[@DizzyBusy]

Now we already have youtubers doing that. The Academy can jump in, of course, but they shouldn't do it on the evening proper, it's already too long as it is

[@nitinpariyar47]

I'm wondering if you could make a brief explanation video of these; IMDB, Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic of how they make the database of movie criticizing and aggregates reviews. Would love to see the next video on this topic.

[@nellisnelslon8210]

LOVE this idea!

[@storiestellr]

ditto

[@farihbenzema3086]

bro is cooking

[@gregre99]

Absolutely! Especially about letterboxd. I wonder how much influence it has now. It’s much more famous than just a few years ago

[@Zephirite.]

Ooh, yes! Especially since Letterboxd is a viewing AND reviewing platform.

[@emillion4470]

"Best" is a misnomer "Favorite" is more apt. Truer still, "Preferred" or "Most liked" by the Academy. "The Best" just sounds....sexier AND marketable..

[@MarcosElMalo2]

What about Best Picture? Which picture? A 90 minute movie contains almost 13,000 pictures. They can’t all be best. The Academy should specify which picture in a film is the best (or favorite or whatever).

[@doctorduskofficial]

in the ceremony itself they call the categories "outstanding acting/directing" or "outstanding achievement in sound" etc which i've always thought was so much classier and respectful

[@emillion4470]

Fair enough but they're all outstanding nominees aren't they? The winner "stood out" because....? @@doctorduskofficial

[@juanitajones6900]

You're perfectly right. I can say the same about this video, which seems as if the vlogger is complaining that certain favorites of his had not won or were snubbed in the nomination process.

[@camipco]

Often, it is "most"

[@willemdaho3]

just watched the iron claw and its fucking baffling that people were upset that Barbie got “snubbed” for two awards, meanwhile everybody who worked on The Iron Claw didn’t get ANYTHINGGGGGG tf is wrong with y’all

[@LynnAMV]

It’s more issue of release time and promotion. It was released in mid December, which you can argue is still enough time for Oscar nominations, however there wasn’t nearly as much promotion for it to be watched by the members of the Academy. If it were to be released in Thanksgiving, it would’ve gotten an nomination. Take a look at Past Lives, another A24 film of this year, it was released during summer and didn’t have much advertisements but it had enough time for many members of Academy to watch. Eventually the name gets spread and more members watch the film. Look at Uncut Gems, released on Christmas and didn’t have much promotion, very similar to Iron Claw, and those two didn’t get nominated. It’s just a matter of time and how much money you’ll spend on promotion.

[@etherealtb6021]

​@@LynnAMVExactly. I haven't seen it, but hear if it had come out sooner or if copies had gone out to Academy members sooner, it would've done very well.

[@jessicawold]

those two statements can absolutely coexist though

[@jesustovar2549]

I haven't seen it but I think that film should have gotten the nominations that Barbie has, best picture, really? Although I would have nominated Greta Gerwig to best director, even tho I preferred her two previous films.

[@Wired4Life2]

​@@LynnAMV A24 should've pushed _The Iron Claw_ to this year. Imagine Zac Efron hogging the Best Actor 2024 spotlight with no resistance for months as we speak.

[@indy-fs6de]

4:11 my brain did a record skip at this footage of Cary Grant presenting an Oscar to Jean Simmons, which goes to show how much of a hyperfixation classic film is for me. Simmons unfortunately never won any Oscars (nor did Grant), and I had to look up what this footage was actually depicting. It was the 1958 Oscars where Alec Guinness won Best Actor for Bridge on the River Kwai, but couldn't attend so Simmons accepted on his behalf.

[@kelskye]

The practice of the December release is particularly annoying for those of us who live overseas, with those December releases in the USA mean the films are often released in Australia the next year. So when critics lists come out, most of the films listed aren't even available to be seen here.

[@ejbell]

Yeah, that's a huge annoyance of mine too. So many of the oscar nominees are only just releasing now in Melbourne. How hard is it to release at the same time?

[@VicenteTorresAliasVits]

They do that because, if a movie gets released outside of the US after it has gotten nominated at the Oscars, it will help sell more tickets. I live in Rome and that happens here too. "Parasite" came out during the last quarter of that year, already having won major awards by that point, but they re-released it the following Winter because it was an "Oscar title".

[@DustyStarrs]

Aussie too. It's getting better than it used to though!

[@ShaneBaker]

Speaking of Driving Miss Daisy: it won best picture (for whatever reason) but its director, Bruce Beresford, wasn't nominated. Billy Crystal referred to it as "a film that apparently directed itself".

[@VicenteTorresAliasVits]

Same thing happened with "Wings", "Grand Hotel", "Argo", "Green Book" and "CODA". It's actually quite simple: Directing is a craft on its own. A movie doesn't have to excel in all areas in other to be considered the best overall.

[@Wired4Life2]

​@@VicenteTorresAliasVits Still, that small grouping of films demonstrates how the lack of a Best Director nom normally kills a film's chances at winning Best Picture.

[@Mirror1973]

He said that same line two years later when The Prince Of Tides, directed by Barbra Streisand, was up for Best Picture but not best Director

[@relicreturns]

The campaign for the Bradley Cooper film Maestro was particularly egregious to me

[@jothishprabu8]

That film was so bad

[@raid4deforce259]

Bradley was good in that film but arguably performances like Nicolas Cage in Dream Senario or Zac Efron were far more deserving.

[@soniaigwe3546]

Please, can you expand on this?

[@disierra-amado5596]

@@raid4deforce259 Andrew Scott was even better than those two.

[@shawklan27]

It's so pretentious

[@98codex]

I don't understand why it can't be complicated. Peer review in academic conferences is also completely volunteer driven but they make sure every submitted research paper gets a review from a qualified scientist. Only after the list is whittled down is a "best paper" awarded. I don't see why a similar two stage filter can't work here.

[@0sm1um76]

The problem with that system is you can't give millions of dollars to Harvey Weinstein

[@DustyStarrs]

right?? if it's this important to the film industry, surely it should be handled properly!

[@cindytartt4048]

Because the reasons for the nominations are DIFFERENT.

[@CWS-g6h]

Academy Awards (which has been heavily advertised) is ultimately just a reference to pick a "good" movie. Then it's up to us to decide which film to watch.

[@ssssssstssssssss]

Nah. I think it’s good for sparking debate as well. Discussion on snubs is good fun and sparks interest in other movies. The problem is if people stop paying attention which I think is becoming the case

[@Chrisratata]

​@@ssssssstssssssssa lot of people treat "snubs" as if the academy is somehow supposed to agree with most of their tastes. There's literally nothing the academy can do to get most people to agree. Even if you took every ounce of politics and favoritism out of it, there would always still end up being upsets and surprise picks pretty much every year. Not only are these things subjective but it's a mix of people voting separately that simply are not the general public EDIT: not to mention the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that has the stamina and availability to watch hundreds of eligible films every single year. Each person's gonna have their own way of narrowing down what's worth their consideration.

[@One.Zero.One101]

Yeah I don't really care who the winner is, I just like to check out the nominees to see if there's something I might like. Ford v. Ferrari, Whiplash, Argo, Moneyball, The Artist, The King's Speech, Parasite are examples of movies that I watched because they were nominated and I ended up liking them. So I'm not one of those Oscar haters but I also don't watch the ceremony.

[@wheatart4274]

I think the year Frozen one the Oscar (I don't remember if it was that specifically) was where I really lost a lot of respect for the Oscars. Not for the film, but because I had read somewhere that the animated nominations had barely been seen by those voting, and the only reason they were voting for the Disney one was because it's what their kids had watched. That's what I'd heard anyways. I'm particularly aware of how little animated films are considered for awards, so even without many oscars, the fact that Spiderverse has been sweeping awards across the country is quite satisfying.

[@rateater1857]

It's a shame they never consider animation for adults in Oscars. I swear, I was expecting 2023 Peasants to at least get a nod, since it was intensely technically impressive, given it was hand-painted.. . no? Medium-shelf kids' cartoon like Elemental instead? Okay..... OTL

[@wonderdoge1625]

Especially since that was the year The Wind Rises was also nominated (and deserved to win)

[@GuineaPigEveryday]

I didn't even know it won an Oscar lol, but honestly some reports you read about the Oscar voters can be so ridiculous and makes you think what dipshits are being given the reins of this awards ceremony, I remember the whole thing about Oscar voters and Little Women, that the timeline was apparently too confusing for them, even with the most obvious shift in colour from warm to cold. Idk reading that from an Oscar voter was just insulting, and yeah its a joke at this point about how much the Oscars honestly despise animation and are just about forced to acknowledge it. Anyone who thinks animation is just for kids really shouldn't be allowed to vote on animation, I mean seriously, is it that hard to watch animation? And for that matter is the question ppl had, also about Little Women, whether the voters EVEN WATCH all the nominated films? I mean come on guys, its not that many films, you have months to do this, most movie fans watch more films in that time.

[@yanavav]

I thought that was such a letdown, esp with Young and Beautiful losing to a Frozen song. You can argue about the artistry and composing of a song but there's almost nothing to compare between a frozen song and YAB, YAB simply outperforms by a longshot.

[@DarcyWalker]

One

[@lararesende7499]

Glenn Close said that Gwyneth Paltrow winning the Oscar instead of Fernanda Montenegro (Central do Brasil) was absurd that she still doesn't understand to this day

[@Lama-Su]

Harvey Weinstein pulled strings to have Gwyneth win.

[@sideshowmob]

It should've been Cate Blanchett with Elizabeth

[@TrulyMadlyShallowly]

I believe Glenn Close - even though I favored Blanchett. That makes two better performances that year

[@Erasureeraser]

Well better ask Harvey Weinstein for that

[@singstreetcar5881]

​@@sideshowmob central station was a better film.tham Elisabeth

[@rajvo1]

I will say, this year it feels like all the major categories are very competitive, and whoever wins for Best Actress, for example, absolutely deserves that (I personally would give it to Sandra Hüller for Anatomy). Best Picture is also very nicely arranged, and so on

[@gnowra]

I think this is especially emphasised in animation where everything is so studio based. I mean the same handful of American studios are nominated every year that the animation branch of the academy is probably so heavily skewed in a super commercial direction. So often animated films that win actually important animation festivals like Annecy aren’t even shortlisted.

[@VicenteTorresAliasVits]

I think we were all very surprised that "Nimona" and especially "Robot Dreams" got nominated instead of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem".

[@Wired4Life2]

​@@VicenteTorresAliasVits Takehiko Inoue's _The First Slam Dunk_ beat Masaaki Yuasa's _Inu-oh_ (submitted for the 95th Oscars) AND Makoto Shinkai's _Suzume no Tojimari_ (submitted for the 96th Oscars) for Best Animated Feature at the recent Japan Academy Film Prizes. Yet distributor GKIDS decided to give it NO support beyond its international release, and devoted all its resources to Oscars season promotion for Hayao Miyazaki's _How Do You Live? (The Boy & the Heron),_ which arguably could've gotten nominated on Miya-san's name alone.

[@energydiluted5587]

I've always thought of the Oscars as the "SuperBowl for movie nerds", meaning it creates a lot of fun discussion and is fun to watch in a competition sense, but at the end of the day the results should not be seen as that historically important, because it almost always comes down to popularity in the moment over any kind of artistic merit.

[@TrulyMadlyShallowly]

The year Shakespeare in Love won, the other movie it was up against was 'Elizabeth', arguably a much better movie - if only for Cate Blanchett's breakthrough role. The irony of the fact that both were set in the same period only highlighted that, no, Paltrow winning over Blanchett and her movie over Elizabeth and Saving Private Ryan, was not a vote on quality. That was highly recognizable even then.

[@Sirrajj]

I think Oscars are still necessary cause most of the times good films get recognised & are rewarded(even if they don't perform great box office)and such talents continue to get funding to make more unconditional offbeat great films that masses (busy riding big budget themeparks) may not watch

[@Sirrajj]

Though as Thomas stated there needs to be vast improvements or else they'll continue to get less & less relevant

[@willemdaho3]

can’t say that with the iron claw. idk how tf a24 fucked that up

[@GuineaPigEveryday]

Good point, there is a notable rise in viewership of more challenging/experimental films that otherwise wouldn't have much attention on them, and in theatrical numbers too, Poor Things for example is maintaining good numbers, and in a day and age where marketing campaigns are relegated 99% to big studio blockbuster-spectacle films, i think the Academy Awards are 100% important to maintaining some sense of rewarding artists who take a chance and try something. Also it's a historical time-capsule, and like a Calendar for films, its great to look back at old Oscars because you can see a lot of really popular exciting films from well-known directors and actors, but also some smaller ones that just don't get discussed that much anymore, not necessarily because they're bad but just because they're not that mainstream. I don't know, the Academy Awards used to be better, I think ppl dismiss that a lot, they talk about it as if it was shit to begin with, but it still offers the spotlight for interesting films, and honestly thats increasingly the only recognition some films that aren't studio-shlock will get nowadays, I mean seriously, Academy Awards while sometimes pretentious used to coincide with big box office hits too for a long time, now they don't, there's quite a lot of Oscars films that just never go past 100mil. Idk the Oscars getting worse is also cuz the cinema landscape is just not great for rewarding good films anymore, the Oscars are very flawed but at least they give some light to interesting art.

[@daniellee2343]

@@Sirrajj If they wanted to be relevant they would nominate the top ten highest grossing movies.

[@tanziheerahbar7592]

It just baffles me how Charles Melton did not get nominated for supporting actor this year. He was easily my pick to win given how devastating and haunting his performance was in a movie that had Julianne Moore AND Natalie Portman in it. Same goes for Celine Song for Past Lives as best director. Now Barbie was a massive favourite of mine from last year but NO, it did NOT get snubbed for director and actress, in my opinion, no matter what white girls on the internet with Taylor Swift as their only personality trait scream about--it rightfully got best picture and best screenplay nods. But Past Lives was such a brilliantly directed movie and Charles Melton was so harrowing in May December that their snubs feel like the Oscars this year were like, "We gave all the awards to Everything Everywhere last year, that's enough Asians for this decade." The Iron Claw and Zac Efron's snubs were also acutely felt by me. Brilliant performance in a brilliant movie.

[@BrettPurcellMusic]

Some further insight here: Most working professionals, in at least LA, are a part of a union or organization for their trade (composers, editors, etc.) these organizations get screenings (free with membership to the org) with Q+A’s with cast and crew all around LA. This is how the majority of working crews get to see these films. They cost money for marketing and venue, which is paid from the movies marketing budget. If there isn’t a screening for a movie, it most likely won’t be seen, due to time constraints of the job. Then there are the marketing items sent to members homes. Some of which are done with care, and some not. You might receive a dvd screener, a streaming code to watch at home, or a shot composition, a letter from a nominee, sheet music (signed and unsigned by musicians), magazines, posters, postcards, the list goes on and on. Since being subject to this, it even furthers what is being said in the video. It’s all about the marketing budget, but obviously having a decent or better film as well.

[@cindytartt4048]

One of Nolan’s dark night trilogy had an advertising budget of $100M. Dude had it right.

[@VictoriaHatzson]

Your videos are so “feel good” videos to me. They’re informative, cosy, beautiful.

[@Zeromus5555]

Saving Private Ryan was robbed. I remember watching the Oscars that year and the entire family sat silent, in shock.

[@kostajovanovic3711]

Good

[@somebody7070]

It's not just that SPR lost, it's that it lost to that trash Shakespeare in love. It's not even about taste or subjectivity. It's like Tiramisu and Tacos , they can't compete because they're on completely on different levels.

[@kellydg471]

@@somebody7070 The only thing SPR had going for it was the first 20 minutes. Shakespeare in Love is so much better than SPR. Tom Stoppard's script is a pure delight with its in-jokes about the theatre and show business. It won 7 oscars which means that somebody must have liked it.

[@somebody7070]

@@kellydg471 oh honey , there's no point in us having this conversation anymore. If you feel the way u feel which is fine, but I judge you MASSIVELY , than good for you. Also more like somebody must have liked sexually harassing Gwyneth Paltrow and you know who I mean

[@Zeromus5555]

@@kellydg471 You either didn't watch the video or don't understand the politics of the Oscars.

[@MegatronJon8]

I've been kinda/sorta following the Oscars for years, and I learned alot from this. Thank you!

[@overseer71]

Thanks for the video. Just a reminder, Louis B. Mayer created the Oscars to stop actors from unionizing back in 1920s. He, and rightly so, realized the actors and so many in the field , in that time, would relish getting an award over, say, important things, like health insurance, fair working hours, and so forth. And thus the Oscars were born, not to celebrate art, but to market films to the masses. And fair enough. However, so many self-declared pundits (especially on You Tube today) have zero, repeat zero, idea how the "town" Hollywood (both the physical location and the industry) really work. Many think that Academy voters choose "what is the best". And that's for the most part, not the case. In many ways, it's favoritism, it's an axe to grind, it's checking off the box, unfortunately, because they are too busy to pay attention. Here's the reality. Many, many great films, performances, contributions, were never, repeat, never nominated for an Oscar. And yet we celebrate them more than most Oscar winners. Here's the question any filmmaker should ask themselves. Would you rather spend a million dollars on a film that earned no Oscar nominations but was revered for all time or one that earned 10 Oscars but was forgotten within a year?

[@ChristopherMarshburn]

Great analysis. Excited to see you approaching a million subscribers.

[@showbizroxs]

The shade towards Maestro 😂😂

[@adrienneclarke3953]

The only marketing I can remember is the nose

[@GuineaPigEveryday]

I know its very popular to hate the Academy Awards right now, but I do think there's an inherent positive aspect to the way it serves as a historical time-capsule, because movie lists of every year are damn long, but Oscars can serve as an anchor for what sort of films had major buzz, what was talked about back then by movie fans, but also what interesting, risky films were there I might not have watched. Sure, there's many snubs, but its not as if the Oscars are made up of completely unknown dogshit films every year, they still serve to immortalise really good films, and especially pre-2000s the Oscars can be really great as a historical record. Also the way that the Oscars can help increase viewership for more challenging/risky/experimental/weird films is also great, I think Poor Things is a good example of that, and as mentioned in this video The Deer Hunter. In this super chaotic world of constant information-exchanges, Oscars are a sort of consistent, sometimes frustration, annoying, presence throughout it all. People might watch it less but hell most people know what it is, they hear of it somehow, its a global phenomenon and part of pop-culture even just a tiny bit. If someone hears a movie got an Oscar it means something.

[@chroney8355]

there's a comment from 15 hours ago but this was uploaded 40 seconds ago so i can't tell if i'm early or if i've found a warp in spacetime

[@VasudevAnandcva]

I guess it was on Patreon before

[@ThomasFlight]

Patrons get early access to videos!

[@n0tthemessiah]

@@ThomasFlight Confirmed, ThomasFlight patrons gain access to a time machine.

[@gangly37]

It seems as though a more thorough change would be to the way academy membership is created. As you said, the membership now is for industry people who have busy lives. My thinking is that membership should be given to academics in photography, acting, creative writing and such, who have an understanding of the way film language has changed over the last century as well as an understanding of the evolving social value and impact film has, who would theoretically be a more broad cross-section of the American public.

[@geraldricoguevara3340]

🎉

[@natanmaurer3510]

Is it a great video or is Tom’s voice just ridiculously soothing? Both… it’s both.

[@AsifKhan-fq5xg]

the greatest snub in recent memory has been either Best Animated Film is continuingly giving it to movies that apeals to the kids most & Ship of Thesus not getting nomination for either Best Picture or Best Foreign Film because it was an Indian film with English dialogue...

[@bobunitone]

I have a family friend who is in the academy and every year they give me all the for consideration scripts the studios send out to each member. Thinking about it now, no way in hell are all these people reading all these scripts to judge which one is the best!

[@invancouver691]

This is a really brave and informative video essay! Thanks for making this.

[@0sm1um76]

The timing of this is sort of funny. Joel Haver, the youtuber known for his animations and Sketch comedy has hosted an event where he asks people to film a movie DURING the Oscars. He announced a day or two ago that he was cancelling the planned awards show because he had recieved too many submissions for him to conceivably watch so he decided to cancel that aspect of the show. I didn't really piece together that he just illustrated in microchosm the biggest issue with the ACTUAL oscars.

[@nivedithaprasad3349]

The 'Shakespeare in Love' campaign also likely sabotaged Cate Blanchett's win for Best Actress (Elizabeth I) - a snub that I take more personally than needed

[@valentunah]

Really interesting having you demystify the Oscars process!

[@MrOtistetrax]

Cutting in that clip of the guy puking over the side of the landing craft from SPR… chef’s kiss.

[@brockeldon444]

I loved this. You brought in some great case studies. Great work!

[@SEAL341]

Past Lives for best picture as I've never seen anything like it and it captured that sense of longing, or The Holdovers which was very charming and funny; a great piece of work. Though I imagine Oppenheimer will get it.

[@Breakfastststst]

Past lives is garbage overrated flim another Hollywood WMAF propaganda flim made by bitter asian women

[@nms7872]

​@@Breakfaststststlot of buzz words and you just have no idea what you're talking about

[@DabbyDom]

One of my high school teachers husband got a vote in the Oscar's. We got to watch movies with the "for your consideration" watermark.

[@bookaufman9643]

Are you sure that Oscar bait was already a popular phrase back in the mid 70's? I certainly never heard it before the 90s and I'm nearly 60 years old.

[@richardjarden690]

Of the last ten Best Picture winners, only three were directed by white males(including one Asian-American/Jewish-American collaboration). Two were directed by Mexicans, two by directors of African descent, and one by a Korean. Two were directed by women(20%, despite only 14.6% of US film directors being women), and one of those women is of Asian descent. Of the last eleven winners for Best Director, only two were white males: Damien Chazelle and Daniel Scheinert(albeit with Scheinert in collaboration with Asian-American Daniel Kwan). Two others went to a Asian male directors(including Ang Lee winning his second award). Two were directed by women, including Asian-American Chloe Zhao, which means that three out of the last fourteen winners of Best Director were women(over 20%). Five of the last ten awards went to Mexicans. So far in the 21st century(2001-2022), there have been 16 Oscars for Acting that have gone to Black performers which, out of 88 awards given, is just shy of 20%, while the actual percentage of Americans who are of African descent is only around 14%. This year, 25% of Oscar nominees for acting are of African-American heritage. Over the last seven years, nearly 40% of Academy Award wins for acting have gone to a visible minority: Mahershala Ali(twice), Viola Davis, Rami Malek, Regina King, Daniel Kaluuya, Youn Yuh-jung, Will Smith, Ariane DeBose, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan(and that doesn't include Troy Kotsur, who is deaf). ...and I haven't even gotten to the percentage of screenwriting awards since 2009 that were written or co-written by visible minorities(Jordan Peele, Spike Lee, Taika Waititi, etc), with half of the writing Oscars in the 2020's going to women. Is there a problem with diversity in our culture? Of course, but this criticism as applied toward the 21st century Academy Awards is overstated(in least in the top categories).

[@flzrian3623]

a fun thing to do is just going to the wikipedia article for a random year's Academy Awards. Pretty much every time you're gonna find snubs or bad decisions. Take the 39th Academy Awards, 1967. A movie called Born Free won best original score. I haven't heard of it but in hindsight it's of course easy to say that none other than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly should have won that year's Best Original Score Category. you can do that for every year. Recency bias is a thing, which is also what oscar bait movies are exploiting, and completely overlooking movies is also a thing

[@alexwalpole4202]

Thank for your high quality videos good stuff sir!

[@thedudeabides3138]

Excellent essay, thank you.

[@milesflanagan4899]

Really concise video. And I agree with your points. Ultimately though art cannot truly be, or should be seen as competitive. It cannot be.

[@zakuraiyadesu]

Love the videos, man. Keep it up!!!

[@angusrawson9135]

In Australia, a lot of films don't get released here until after the oscars so they can use it as marketing.

[@Argeaux2]

The Deer Hunter is a very good film, though.

[@danielellis8685]

Great articulation my friend.

[@neosindane8958]

As always, very well thought-out and done properly. 👍👍. By the way hows your migraines now?

[@djr3386]

Thank you for sharing your video. I learned a lot of new things about the Oscars which I always wanted to know. Your latest subscriber.

[@suicaedere7244]

Now explain the never ending snub of horror and comedy.

[@DarthVader-ig6ci]

08:07 watching this part literally makes me feel physical pain😶

[@KrisBryant99]

It feels like the Oscars exist for the sole purpose of being a "production" within itself rather than celebrating movies.

[@Leahcimmichael]

Best score needs to recognise the scores of animated films more often.

[@DarcyWalker]

Cringe comment

[@Wijking_A]

Would be interesting if you could do a similar video about Canne film festival

[@adamd8016]

The Thin Red Line also split the Saving Private Ryan vote to some extent.

[@camipco]

imo, a better movie than SPR, although SPR does the thing it is trying to do with his incredible skill. Spielberg has never failed to make the best version of the movie he was trying to make.

[@petergivenbless900]

Ultimately, the Oscars have always been a popularity contest and subject to industry politics; they have always skewed to conservative tastes, and the dynamics of team "A" versus team "B" has occasionally resulted in the surprise of a win for team "C". They are a lot of fun if you don't take them too seriously, and not much fun when they take themselves too seriously.

[@thisdudegotreal]

The worship of numbers in box office performance is only an indication of how effective its marketing was.

[@c.m.9369]

I aim to see every nominated film every year. Obviously most of the time, that‘s not possible. Most of the time we‘re talking about over 50 movies per year, over 35 feature length movies. So, it‘s hard to expect people to see EVERY movie. HOWEVER: If you get to vote in a category, it should be MANDATORY that you‘ve seen the movies nominated in these categories! If I can do it for most movies in the entire list, then industry people with easy access to all these movies should DEFINITIVELY be able to do so for the categories they have the privilege to vote in!

[@Angers98]

Would’ve loved a breakdown on how movies are chosen to be included on that list of 200+ films to vote on.

[@rics1883]

Oscars are hardly about performance but how well actors campaigned themselves, their narratives, and with current political landscape. Oscars are not arbiter of merit, or quality of performance.

[@yanavav]

Classic case of capitalism usurping artistry. Dissapointing nonetheless

[@SolAya21]

My buddy had an idea that I think the academy should pursue. Instead of giving the award to one person and creating so many opportunities for snubs, we should start to award Oscars as a Class system. What that means is instead of the best actor of 2024, it would be "The Class of 2024" . If you still wanted to make it an exclusive club you could award it to only 3 out of the 6 nominations, so you still retain the exclusivity aspect.

[@Art-is-craft]

What participation trophies?

[@Argeaux2]

Can anyone tell me what original work the film Barbie was based on? Anyone? Didn’t think so.

[@noatrope]

The original work is the Barbie franchise, which you may have heard of. I think it's interesting what definitions people assume about what constitutes "a work" and "an adaptation". There are plenty of adaptations, even acclaimed ones, that radically change the original story. Is it possible to adapt an artwork that had no story to begin with? I don't know why not.

[@Zzzaac]

One of the biggest snubs was Joyland being shortlisted and then not being nominated... And then All Quiet on the Western Front won? 😬

[@rapidreaders7741]

Decision to Leave snub still stings to this day

[@ConstantGardener-q9q]

Seems like you have the metrics to do a quantitative analysis. Compare the marketing budget of winners and nominees over the last 20 years. Could be a good thesis project for a graduate student.

[@peterhorus3874]

And that's why horror movies almost always get snubbed, especially beyond the more "technical" categories. No matter how much they even advertise them, most people still simply don't want to watch them. Best example: Hereditary. "Oh no, that's too heavy for me! I'd rather watch Green Book or Bohemian Rhapsody - there I know what I get..." So it's really just a popularity contest and not about actual quality, particularly in Best Picture category...

[@p0k314COM]

I live in Europe and if even 20 years ago the Oscars were very popular, today practically no one cares. I don't even know if as any TV station rebroadcasts the event.

[@DOMDED1]

where can i find this long list of best pictures for our consideration?

[@ThomasFlight]

www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/96th_aa_bp_reminder_list.pdf

[@DOMDED1]

@@ThomasFlight thanks!

[@jothishprabu8]

I don't really care about the oscars but we can't deny the fact that it's important for the industry in some form.

[@krombopulos_michael]

4:14 I think worth remembering is that the oversights can seem obvious as they're happening but what seems obvious does not actually turn out to necessarily be correct. One very high-profile snub I remember was Crash beating Brokeback Mountain in 2006. Brokeback Mountain was a huge point of conversation at the time due to its relatively (at the time) explicit depiction of a gay relationship while Crash was considered to be bland Oscar bait faire. But in the time since, Brokeback Mountain has also kind of fallen out of mainstream attention and is not really a film that is still widely talked about much or that influential, even though at the time it seemed to most people unhappy with the result that it would be. Similar story in 2019 when Green Book won over Roma, which has also not had that big an impact 5 years later. Thats not to say Green Book or Crash were great choices either, just that the "obvious" better choice didn't really turn out to be the correct one.

[@AfutureV]

Hindsight is also infinite because future generations will reevaluate movies again and the consensus may flip. Cinema is a relatively young art form compared to the rest, but the Renaissance is an example of that.

[@cruella4341]

Brokeback Mountain is very much still talked about I would argue, people definitely still discuss it and there are plenty iconic scenes. Sure it’s not as prominent as other queer films but there’s definitely a broad demographic of people who have seen it

[@liamlennon3316]

Brokeback is definitely still talk especially more than fucking crash which is only mentioned due to basically everyone finding it undeserving of best picture win lmao

[@blu3622]

I will never understand how "Shakespeare in love" won any Oscar! Much less beat "Saving private Ryan" for picture of the year?!

[@Tomhyde098]

Isn’t it also true that some favorites to win didn’t because voters thought that others would vote for them, and then enough of them thought the same thing and it didn’t get enough votes and caused upsets?

[@FuegodeInfierno]

IMO the best pictures are the ones who had an impact and are still remembered by the public, wether they won the category or not

[@midniteauthor]

I think that voting is difficult, across all awards as you've perfectly summed up. Filmmakers and Academy members cannot watch everything, I'm not sure how you fix that. The Ballon d'Or in football is actually voted on by journalists not football players (though the captain of a country's international team also votes, I may have some of this wrong but it is journalist driven). I'm not sure if that would help the academy, making their membership larger. Giving more people an opinion. As I said this is an award-wide issue. I'm eligible to vote in the Eisner Awards (comic book Oscars essentially) due to being a published comic book writer, and every year I only vote on a handful of categories. Because I can't vote in a category that I haven't read everything in, I would love to read every nominate piece but as you said people who make art are often busy making art. I'm busy writing, or reading stuff to assist my own writing. I'm trying to get better at reading more nominated stuff because it always feels weird filling out a small amount of the ballot. Just wanted to give my own perspective as someone who has eligiblilty to vote on awards even if it isn't the Oscars. Great video as always.

[@julienperonne2347]

Or you get journalists (movie critics), whose job it actually is to watch 300 films a year, at least to do the first part of the skimming, and then when you have your nominees, the peers come in and award or not award the remaining films they can reasonably be expected to have seen.

[@connordavis4766]

This term is used pejoratively (not necessarily intended by the video) but Deer Hunter is an AMAZING movie, and while it's a shame it had to be marketed this way to be a success, I'm glad it was.

[@wilsonsecaur1015]

Another great video Thomas. I'm still disappointed (but not surprised) that Laura Dern didn't get a nod for Inland Empire too.

[@thagaisal]

A big marketing Oscars campaign is not guarantee to get a bunch of nominations (ie Saltburn). I would have included ‘Power and influence in Hollywood’ as a big driving factor (like in the Weisentein example, it was not because his campaigns had money but because he was feared in the industry), and also on the other spectrum you have outcasts like Parasite that create a buzz among viewers that even while old male academy members can’t ignore. Today movie marketing starts waaay before the Oscar’s, with viewers more engaged with the results of film festivals and the conversation happening in social media and KZbin channels like this one. There’s so much more than those magazine ads!

[@kellyj.azania4371]

This is WAYYY off target but I do wish you'd do an analysis of the film "Tommy". Today, I've just seen it for the very first time. I got the gist of it. However, I sense there are some nuances I missed.

[@trinaq]

It's sad that America Ferrera couldn't even be excited about her Oscar Nomination, since she had to comfort Margot Robbie over not being nominated herself.

[@yeahiagree1070]

well her nomination was a hysterical joke in the first place.. i should think she was grateful for the attention to be drawn away from it.

[@calidofrio13]

@@yeahiagree1070 how was it a joke? Even the critics gave her the See Her award.

[@yeahiagree1070]

@@calidofrio13 i just had to google wtf that is.. apparently a honour awarded for advocating gender equality activism. well good for her, but it has absolutely nothing to do with acting. it's delusional to pretend america ferrera gave one of the top 50 performances of the year, never mind the top 5.

[@jothishprabu8]

That film sucked hard

[@calidofrio13]

@@yeahiagree1070 did you even watch the video? 😂 This comment just shows that you don't understand how the industry works. If the critics are saying "hey, you should see America Ferrera because she has had a sucessful career and deserves praise". Everyone is going to at least take a look. People don't get Oscars for their performances alone, they get Oscars for their careers and legacy. Not only that but how many Latinas have been nominated for major awards? Not many. She is, to this day, the only Latina to have won an Emmy for a leading role. Yes, she deserves the nomination and to be invited as a member of the academy (Which is what the nomination is really for, let's be real here). Yes, she deserved the nomination because there aren't many Latinos in the academy and that's why we don't get enough roles and therefore nominations. Equity starts with little things like this. You keep thinking the Oscars award the best performances and that's not it because there's not an evaluation scorecard. The Academy votes for who deserves it the most in an effort to try to balance injustices in the industry. Any comment against her nomination is racist.

[@wyacheslawkodanev2107]

After talking about big marketing budgets and how they influence the voters, there's still a big question: why would the Academy want to nominate a movie no one heard about? You actually need some kind of hype (at least among critics or among cine-philes) to be considered 'a good nominee'. Imagine a completely unknown movie even you never heard about being nominated for Best Picture. Movie KZbinrs and movie twitter will be the first ones to bring all their hate to that movie! Also, audience is really important. The main reason why the amount of Best Picture nominees was expanded - a lot of movies in the top 5 were unknown to wide audience. Why would you watch the Oscars on TV if you've seen NONE of the Best Picture nominees? That's why the marketing budget is important. You can lower the influence of 'wide release in January' or 'for you consideration', but you need your movie to be famous. And if you really made a good movie, you would WANT your film to be seen by people, you will do as much as you can to have a bigger marketing budget. Distributors are looking for good movies all the time - you'll do everything you can to show your good movie to a good distributor and make them pay for marketing. So, if movie is really unknown and has 0 marketing budget (even if it somehow got into the Best Picture longlist), maybe it shouldn't be nominated for the Oscars?

[@MC-jy1id]

An additional point about box office influence is that the international market is often only tapped into after the nominations or even the award ceremony. Oscar (nominations) thus even partly influence the selection of films in cinemas.

[@wonjoomin]

Ever since Argo won thr best picture, I stopped watching the Academy Awards and started paying more attention to individual movie critic's choices

[@ADavid42]

thanks for saying it out loud. Meanwhile, what happened to 'Cinema of Meaning'?

[@CrisWhetstone]

I think one important thing to note is that the industry basically wants their biggest awards to be somewhat insular and semi-controlled by the insiders. Their goal is not to award the best films. Its to award the films they want to recognize as the best. We don't have to think of it as nefarious but just recognize that the goal of the Academy is not exactly what we want it to be. If it were truly about awarding the best achievements in cinema then the Academy would not be a collection of invite only insiders. It would be a smaller organization of people out to identify exceptional cinema whether connected to the main industry or not.

[@VicenteTorresAliasVits]

I don't know... When the whole Golden Globes controversy happened, one of the things people criticized the most was that such a prestigious award shouldn't be chosen by such a low amount of people.

[@CrisWhetstone]

@@VicenteTorresAliasVits But that's not an analogous situation. The GG were basically a much more corrupt, small version of the Oscars. What I am saying is that if an org like the Academy was serious about awarding the best in cinema, they wouldn't leave the voting up to a popularity contest. They would have people focused on evaluating the best in craft. The GG certainly wasn't doing anything like that either.

[@VicenteTorresAliasVits]

@@CrisWhetstone Oh, sure. That's why I said "one of the things people criticized". The corruption was the main thing, but people used the opportunity to point out every thing that they felt was wrong. And one of them was the fact that there were less than 100 voters, which made it seem like the award had no real merit. That was an indirect jab at all the projects and individuals that won a Golden Globe but didn't win at other ceremonies.

[@linkahyrule2404]

The music starting at 14:57 seems to be Just So Happens by Sensitive Detective.

[@Wolverine3196]

Scrolling through the comments is worth it! Thank you!

[@learningtobe1920]

i love listening to this guy speak

[@persia888]

The total snub of All of Us Strangers was unforgivable

[@kap1e246]

Shouldve called the video: Anatomy of a Snub

[@LaurianeG.]

my favorite quote from spike lee: "Every time someone is driving somebody, I lose!"

[@ammanbansal2265]

Thomas, I think your KZbin videos beat the traditional college film studies course. There are so many things that I'm still learning that I never picked up in a classic film course. Awesome work!