With the recent announcement of the nominees for the upcoming 94th Academy Awards, it is becoming more and more likely that this is the year that a film premiered or mass-distributed by a streaming service will finally take home the award for Best Picture.
All signs currently point to the big winner of the night being Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” with it having the most nominations of any movie this year at 12. The film was released worldwide through Netflix last December following a limited theatrical release in November.
Campion’s film isn’t even the only streaming-released movie nominated for Best Picture this year. With Best Picture nods also going to Adam McKay’s global warming satire “Don’t Look Up” (Netflix) as well as Sian Heder’s “CODA” (Apple TV+), three out of the 10 nominees are streaming-released.
This is only getting into the nominations for Best Picture, though. Movies like “Being the Ricardos” (Amazon Prime), “Tick, Tick…. Boom!” (Netflix) and “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (Apple TV+) also all have nominations in other categories.
While the ruling for the Oscars technically requires all films to have played in theaters publicly at least once during the year, streaming-original movies have been getting around this for years by having their films play in limited releases in larger film markets such as New York and Los Angeles.
Recently, however, streaming services have been experimenting more with showing their films in theaters in the weeks leading up to its online release. I even saw “The Power of the Dog,” “Don’t Look Up” and “The Tragedy of Macbeth” at a local theater that offered these showings.
It brings into question just how much of an increased presence streaming services will have over the Oscars in the coming years, as their influence and inclusion in the award show has only grown. Streaming services have become one of the most premier mediums for drama films that would get nominated for the Oscars.
Streaming services at the Oscars aren’t exactly new. The integration of the two has been happening for a while, with Netflix leading the charge. The service has recently been getting at least one Best Picture nominee per year, with “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Mank” for the 2021 ceremony, “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story” for the 2020 ceremony and “Roma” for the 2019 ceremony. “Roma” is significant because, while it was the only streaming-released movie nominated for Best Picture that year, it ended up with some big wins, including the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón.
However, as prevalent as Netflix has been in solidifying streaming in the Oscars, it wasn’t the first streaming service to break into the Academy Awards. It was actually Amazon Prime for distributing Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea” several months after its theatrical release. The film received six nominations ahead of the 2017 ceremony, including one for Best Picture, and ultimately won for Best Actor (Casey Affleck) and Best Original Screenplay (Lonergan).
Amazon has also gotten recent recognition, with Darius Marder’s “Sound of Metal” winning Best Sound and Best Film Editing at the 2021 ceremony. While not being an original to the service, Hulu also made a point of picking up the streaming rights to Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” which would end up winning Best Picture at the 2021 ceremony, in the months before the awards were even unveiled. This made Hulu one of the main ways that people watched the film, especially in early 2021 when quarantines were still in effect.
This tactic is even coming into effect this year, as HBO Max has picked up the streaming rights to a current Best Picture nominee, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” and will be streaming the film on March 2. The service also shared streaming rights with Hulu for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley,” which premiered for both services on Feb. 1, and also shared streaming rights for Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” with Disney+, with the film scheduled to premiere for the service on March 2.
Even outside of the films that can only be found on specific streaming services, six out of the 10 nominees for Best Picture this year will be available to watch on streaming services come time for the actual event. As for the other four — “King Richard,” “Dune,” “Belfast” and “Licorice Pizza” — two of the four (“Dune” and “Belfast”), are available for digital purchase on services that allow rentals such as Prime Video and iTunes, and the other two are sure to follow when we get closer to the actual event.
Streaming services have definitely inserted themselves as a power player and an important aspect of the Oscars. This year is shaping up to exhibit the most impact and influence that they’ve had yet, not only on how we watch these movies, but also in the movies that get nominated themselves. Especially if “The Power of the Dog” ends up winning Best Picture this year, this is a trend that will not be stopping anytime soon.
