Unusually large number of popular movies among the 2019 Academy Awards nominations

Every year, Hollywood’s elite gather in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards, a celebration of the best movies of the past 12 months. Since the ceremony began in 1929, the Academy has changed its preferences regarding what kind of movies it tends to reward, but in the past decade or so, it’s generally preferred smaller, independent movies over showy, popular blockbusters.

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I’ll show you what I mean. Last year, Best Picture candidates included war dramas like Dunkirk and adolescent slice-of-life dramas like Ladybird and Call Me By Your Name, with Guillermo del Toro’s offbeat sci-fi romance The Shape of Water taking home the gold. The year before that, coming-of-age drama Moonlight got top honors, beating out competitors like the gritty Manchester By The Sea and the dreamlike musical La La Land. Meanwhile, the highest-grossing movies for those two years including films like Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. But those kind of mass market crowd-pleasers rarely find their way into the Best Picture category.

But that may be changing. The 2019 Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and the top categories include an unusually large number of movies that people…y’know, have actually seen. Take a look at the full list of nominees:

BEST PICTURE

• Black Panther
• BlacKkKlansman
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Favourite
• Green Book
• Roma
• A Star Is Born
• Vice

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Christian Bale, Vice
• Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
• Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
• Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
• Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
• Glenn Close, The Wife
• Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
• Olivia Colman, The Favourite
• Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

DIRECTOR

• Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
• Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War
• Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite
• Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
• Adam McKay, Vice

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Amy Adams, Vice
• Marina de Tavira, Roma
• Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
• Emma Stone, The Favourite
• Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Mahershala Ali, Green Book
• Adam Driver, BlackKKlansman
• Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born
• Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me
• Sam Rockwell, Vice

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Incredibles 2
• Isle of Dogs
• Mirai
• Ralph Breaks the Internet
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• BlacKkKlansman
• Can You Ever Forgive Me?
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• A Star Is Born

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• First Reformed
• Green Book
• Roma
• The Favourite
• Vice

PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Black Panther
• The Favourite
• First Man
• Mary Poppins Returns
• Roma

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Capernaum
• Cold War
• Never Look Away
• Roma
• Shoplifters

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)

• Black Sheep
• End Game
• Lifeboat
• A Night at the Garden
• Period. End of Sentence.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Free Solo
• Hale County This Morning, This Evening
• Minding the Gap
• Of Fathers and Sons
• RBG

ORIGINAL SONG

• “All The Stars” – Black Panther“=
• “I’ll Fight” – RBG
• “Shallow” – A Star Is Born
• “The Place Where Lost Things Go” – Mary Poppins Returns
• “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Cold War
• The Favourite
• Never Look Away
• Roma
• A Star Is Born

COSTUME DESIGN

• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• Black Panther
• The Favourite
• Mary Poppins Returns
• Mary Queen of Scots

SOUND EDITING

• A Quiet Place
• Black Panther
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• First Man
• Roma

SOUND MIXING

• Black Panther
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• First Man
• Roma
• A Star Is Born

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

• Animal Behaviour
• Bao
• Late Afternoon
• One Small Step
• Weekends

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

• Detainment
• Fauve
• Marguerite
• Mother
• Skin

ORIGINAL SCORE

• Black Panther
• BlacKkKlansman
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Isle of Dogs
• Mary Poppins Returns

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Avengers: Infinity War
• Christopher Robin
• First Man
• Ready Player One
• Solo: A Star Wars Story

FILM EDITING

• BlacKkKlansman
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Green Book
• The Favourite
• Vice

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

• Border
• Mary Queen of Scots
• Vice

Of particular note is that Black Panther is among the Best Picture nominees. It’s the first superhero movie ever to have that honor; not even 2008’s The Dark Knight, which was critically beloved, got on the Best Picture list. Black Panther was also the highest-grossing movie in the U.S. for 2018. A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody were also big mainstream hits. Are the Oscars becoming more populist?

You could kind of see something like this coming a few months back, when the Academy announced that it was adding a “Best Popular Film” category to its roster, supposedly so it could honor popular movies while still keeping the Best Picture category a haven for the smaller, artier films the voters love so much. The Academy wanted to have its cake and eat it too, and the announcement was met with blowback from people who thought it was pandering. Just put Black Panther in the Best Picture category, guys! You don’t have to make a whole new category because you’re ashamed of liking it.

The Academy must have listened to that outcry, because the “Best Popular Film” category is nowhere to be found. And on top of all that drama, the 2019 Oscars still have no host, with the Academy considering trotting out a bunch of actors from Avengers: Endgame as an alternative.

Basically, right now, the Academy Awards are more interesting that they’ve been in a good long while. The award show will air on Sunday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m. CST on ABC.

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h/t CNN