Oscar season explained

On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The war film “Wings”, directed by William A. Wellman won the award for Best Picture of the Year, while the award for Best Artistic and Unique Picture went to FW Murnau’s masterpiece “Sunrise”. Two awards for best director were handed out that night, one for drama (to Frank Borzage for “7th Heaven”) and one for comedy (Lewis Milestone for “Two Arabian Nights”). There were only two performance awards: Best Actor went to Emile Jannings for The Last Command, while Janet Gaynor took Best Actress for The Last Command. three Movies (“7th Heaven”, “Sunrise”, “Street Angel”). The ceremony was held without pomp or suspense: it lasted 15 minutes, and the winners were known in advance. The razzle-dazzle is booked for the next party.

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) chose to broadcast the ceremony over radio in 1930, it quickly became a subject of interest to a film-obsessed public who were fascinated by the advent of “talkies” and fascinated by their cult idols. At some point, the awards became known as the “Oscars,” with everyone from AMPAS President/Librarian Margaret Herrick to Bette Davis receiving credit for the title. By the time the ceremony was first televised in 1953, film fans around the world were enamored with the idea of ​​an annual shindig that pits some of the world’s biggest films and stars against each other in pursuit of awards voted on by their peers. . Tens of millions of people watch the Academy Awards ceremony annually (with 1998 broadcast dominated by “Titanic” It still stands as the most-watched concert of all time), although the length of the event can be punishing (none more so than the four-hour, 23-minute marathon in 2002).

We may live in a very different entertainment environment these days, but the Oscars still generate a great deal of excitement outside of the film industry. They don’t quite move the box office needle like they used to (largely because movies don’t stay in theaters very long anymore), but people are still impressed when nominations are announced in January, and at least pay attention to who wins in January. Oscar night (which is usually a Sunday in March). More movie fans start following the Oscar race much earlier; They’re watching Oscars columnists/bloggers speculate and excitedly wondering if this will be the year a superhero movie wins Best Picture.

We call this season Oscar season, and it is a lucrative industry in itself. How does it work, and who benefits other than the people competing for the trophy? I’ve covered the season as a journalist on and off for more than 20 years, and have been following it since I was a kid. Here’s what I learned during that time.

Oscar season never ends. Once you close the book on the calendar year, the Oscar chase begins anew, while the one that began the year before intensifies. confused? Here’s the clearest explanation I can offer.

Starting Jan. 1, every film that has at least seven days of theatrical release in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets is eligible for the Oscars. So, yes, in theory, the 2025 Oscars derby will begin When “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” hits multiplexes On January 10th. However, don’t expect awards journalists to start writing about the 2025 season on that day. They’ll start thinking about potential contenders when they attend the Sundance Film Festival later this month, where thoroughbreds like “Call Me By Your Name,” “Whiplash” and 2021 best picture winner “CODA” debut.

At this time of year journalists do double duty. In 2025, Oscar nominations for 2024 films will be announced on January 17, six days before the start of Sundance. Some journalists will also attend the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where Wes Anderson’s film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” premiered. Do Oscar voters also attend these festivals or at least read what the buzz is? Unless they have a film screening at any of the festivals, they usually don’t attend. They’ll read the reviews, of course, but with the Oscars voting deadline looming on February 18, those who vote in good faith are restricted to watching or rewatching all of the nominees.

Funny enough, while the Oscars are on March 10, some Oscar-winning journalists will have to travel to Austin for the film portion of the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals March 7-15. Although there are fewer first-time awards contenders here than at Sundance, this… He is The festival that was given to us Best Picture Winner “Everything Everywhere at Once” In 2022. Then, journalists get a reprieve in April before Oscar season returns in force at the Cannes Film Festival in May. A slew of Oscar favorites have their premieres at this most prestigious festival, where, as “Parasite” proved in 2019, a Palme d’Or win can translate into a best picture award 10 months later.

Oscar season cools off considerably during the summer months, but picks up again in late August with the back-to-back trio of the Venice International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. Studios and distributors generally save their major year-end contenders for these three events, which serve as a sink-or-swim flurry of premieres. In my experience, this is when most Oscar voters register and start gauging potential awards based on buzz from journalists and their peers. Since these movies will be hitting theaters in the coming months, they can start going out and making their own mental list of the year’s best movies, shows, screenplays, etc. He can. It may seem strange, but some Academy members don’t start seeing films until showrunners arrive later in the fall.

This brings us to December when critics’ groups vote on year-end awards aimed at swaying Oscar voters. An organization like the New York Film Critics Circle can raise the bar for a starless indie film or an intellectually challenging epic (like 2024’s “The Brutalist”). There are nuances to a lot of this, but in general, this is how Oscar season works annually.

Now let’s get into the election campaign.

If you think the answer to this question is “it’s going to be a great movie,” that’s unfortunately not the case. With few exceptions, legitimate consideration for the Oscars is a pay-to-play deal. Hundreds of millions of dollars are poured into the approval industry, with campaigns for individual films often exceeding $20 million.

It wasn’t always like this. For most of the Oscars, campaigning took place on a much smaller scale, to the point of being completely invisible to anyone outside the film industry. If you live in Hollywood, you’ll see billboards dotted around town, and full-page ads published in trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Decades ago, I always looked forward to the fall months just to see which hopeless prestige photos got the obligatory FYC announcements (my favorite was that of Caleb Deschanel’s long-forgotten yachting drama “Wind”). I was also happy to see that Dark, choppy indie music like “Heathers.” Get a small payment for your best original screenplay.

Here the question arises: Who determined the contenders? For a long time, reviews and word-of-mouth were key, and you can blame the latter, brought about by the Academy’s aging and increasingly white membership, for the cold shoulder of exciting and diverse classics like “Do the Right Thing,” “Blue Velvet” and “To Die By.” “Delay it.” These masterpieces grew out of the independent film movement of the 1980s (ironically the now-prestigious Sundance Film Festival), which accelerated the rise of increasingly prominent independent distributors like Miramax. When Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein got tired of being denied the big Oscar, he turned Oscar season into a political campaign.

Oscar season as we know it now began in 1998, when Miramax spent loads of money and used dirty tricks straight out of Nixon’s political playbook (After the Watergate break-in) to topple the expensive best picture award for “Saving Private Ryan.” With “Shakespeare in Love”. The industry establishment panicked for a heated moment before deciding to adopt Weinstein’s rules. From that point on, the studios identified contenders for blue-chip stock in the fall (while adjusting for box office performance because no one likes failure), and spent like Ernest Hemingway on a daiquiri bending machine. Publicists who specialize in awards campaigns will be appointed to secure prime media real estate for clients, while special Academy screenings will include Q&As hosted by past Oscar winners (this year, Guillermo del Toro championed “Nosferatu,” while Christopher Nolan planted his flag on the film). . “Gladiator II” hill).

If she tries to make a final spin on the money machine with a grassroots campaign (as Andrea Riseborough did when her peers lobbied for her 2023 best actress nomination for “To Leslie”), the establishment will force the Academy to get to grips with it. You love a cheater (AMPAS shamefully investigated Riseborough for rules violations, but cleared her of any wrongdoing).

In short, campaigning for an Oscar is a lot like running for office. It’s exhausting and terribly ungenerous. But with very few exceptions (such as George C. Scott and Marlon Brando), no one was unhappy about winning one of these awards. That’s why Oscar season will thrive as long as humans make motion pictures. We’ll have to wait and see how the AI ​​feels about winning prizes.