This Sunday, the 97th Academy Awards air on ABC (and stream on Hulu). The premiere category is always Best Picture. Here are the nominees:
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- Conclave
- A Complete Unknown
- Dune: Part Two
- Emilia Pérez
- I'm Still Here
- Nickel Boys
- The Substance
- Wicked
The Oscars have a history of rewarding smaller, more intimate movies over big Hollywood blockbusters, and are especially loathe to give awards to big franchise movies in the sci-fi/fantasy space. By my count, the only time it's happened was in 2003, when Academy voters gave the Best Picture Oscar to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, an acknowledgement of the remarkable work director Peter Jackson, his cast and crew did on that trilogy.
But other than that, the Academy stays away from franchises. The only Marvel movie to ever be nominated for Best Picture was Black Panther. The only Star Wars movie to be nominated was the original 1977 film, and both lost.
But for better or worse, franchise movies are what bring the most people into theaters these days, and the Academy's reluctance to recognize them means they're often out of step with the viewing public. Is it any wonder that ratings for the Oscars have declined over the years?
It's cool when the Academy rewards a smaller, excellent movie that people otherwise might not have heard about; there have been lots of success stories over the years, including Parasite's win in 2019 and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once taking home the top prize in 2022. And I understand that big franchise movies can be sucky or mediocre, and they don't deserve to be nominated based on box office returns alone. But sometimes, when the stars align, we get a big franchise sci-fi/fantasy film that is fantastic, successful, and shows what Hollywood can do when they bend all of their considerable resources towards telling a gripping story full of spectacle and wonder. Rewarding that kind of movie would be in Hollywood's best interest; it lets the viewing public know that they love this stuff just as much as the fans.
All that is to say: I think Dune: Part Two should win Best Picture.
Making even a small movie is a minor miracle. Making a movie like Dune: Part Two is near impossible. Over 1,000 people worked on this movie. The cast and crew traveled to far-flung places to capture breathtaking shots of endless rolling desert. Dune: Part Two has people talking about Timothée Chalamet, who gives quietly explosive performance as space messiah Paul Atreides, like he's a movie star in an era when movie stars are a thing of the past.
When studios are willing to to hand out this much money to make a movie, usually they're compromised in some way. I like the Marvel Cinematic Universe as much as the next guy, but a lot of those movies have a sort of house style to them that starts to blend into itself after awhile. And I get why: when you're playing with hundreds of millions of dollars of Disney's money, they want to be sure that you're going to provide a return, and the best way to do that is to give people what they expect.
But the Dune movies cost a barrel of money and yet maintain their weirdness and individuality. We have Lady Jessica's talking baby, we have magnificent pregnant pauses before before sandworms swallow armies whole, we have expressionistic lighting, we have a story that ends with the hero starting a galaxy-wide massacre. The Dune movies, which stick quite close to the text of Frank Herbert's book, are extremely bold. Credit must be given to director Denis Villeneuve for holding the line, to Warner Bros. Discovery for trusting him, and to the cast and crew taking the ball and running with it.
And people responded. Dune: Part Two made over $700 million at the box office, a sign that people appreciate this sort of bracing blockbuster spectacle when done right. I think the Academy would do well to reward that kind of effort, and I want to see it happen.
I don't think it will, though. I'm guessing that the Best Picture Oscar will go to The Brutalist, which has a narrative sweep comparable to Dune, but which is much more firmly grounded in our own world, and made with far fewer trappings common to giant blockbusters. And if that happens, The Brutalist will deserve it; it's a really good movie. But on the rare occasion that a movie like Dune: Part Two comes along, a movie that successfully marries major studio filmmaking with indie-style artistry, I wish it would get recognized.*
*The other big Hollywood movie up for Best Picture this year is Wicked, which actually made slightly more money than Dune: Part Two at the box office. I'd be fine with that winning, too, but we'll tackle one Hollywood prejudice at a time: Academy votes do love their award-winning movies big and ponderous.
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