As someone who has spent countless hours delving into the intricacies of film and awards season, I find myself constantly amazed at the quirks and peculiarities that emerge from the Academy Awards. The tales of Formico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and many others serve as a testament to the unpredictable nature of the Oscars, and the seemingly arbitrary decisions that can lead to certain films being overlooked.
Starting in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) increased the number of Best Picture Oscar nominees from five to ten. This change allowed more major studio melodramas, such as “The Blind Side” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” which might not have been nominated just a few years prior, to receive Best Picture nods. In recent times, the category has expanded to accommodate between six and ten nominees (the ceremony has stabilized at ten in recent years). This expansion has provided an opportunity for lesser-known arthouse films like “Drive My Car” from 2021 and “Past Lives” from 2023, which were critically acclaimed, to compete for the Best Picture award. Given their status as the best movies of their respective years, their inclusion in the Oscars was a significant advantage for the event.
In simpler terms, the expansion of the Best Picture category after 2008 has given more films a chance to compete for the most esteemed Oscar category. Not every film can secure a nomination for Best Picture, though. Interestingly, there are three post-2008 movies that received Best Director Oscar nods but were not nominated for Best Picture as well. This used to happen frequently when there were only five Best Picture nominees, but it’s surprising to see it occur now with seven or more nominees each year. So, what are these three films and why do they hold this peculiar Oscar trivia? Will other movies follow suit? And lastly, why am I bringing all this up?
These three films under discussion are “Foxcatcher,” “Cold War,” and “Another Round.” All three received nominations for Best Director at the Oscars. Interestingly, none of them managed to secure a Best Picture nomination despite the increased number of nominees. Disregarding personal opinions about these specific movies, “Foxcatcher” was the most puzzling case. The Oscars seemed particularly fond of “Foxcatcher,” as director Bennett Miller received a nomination for Best Director, and it also earned acting nods in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories, as well as a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Despite these accolades, “Foxcatcher” was overlooked for a Best Picture nomination. It’s intriguing that the Oscar voters viewed this film as one of the best-acted, written, and directed movies of 2014, yet it didn’t receive a Best Picture nod.
Both “Cold War” and “Another Round” fared quite well in terms of Oscar nominations. Notably, “Cold War” received nominations for Best International Feature Film and Best Cinematography, while “Another Round” garnered a nod for Best International Feature Film and a slot for Best Director. Regrettably, both titles earned Best Director but missed out on the Best Picture Oscar nomination, which is a pattern that has been observed frequently in Academy Awards history. It’s usual for foreign language films to make it into the Best Director category, but less common for them to be nominated for Best Picture…except for these exceptional cases.
Prior to the 85th Academy Awards, only nine foreign films had been nominated for Best Picture, with one of them being a Clint Eastwood production funded in America. The 1960s saw eight nominations for foreign directors in the Best Director category. It was common to recognize filmmakers like Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman in this category during that time. Despite Akira Kurosawa’s numerous masterpieces, none of them were ever nominated for Best Picture. However, he did receive a nomination for Best Director at the 58th Academy Awards for Ran. Before 2008, it was typically a foreign language film that highlighted any discrepancy between Best Picture and Best Director nominations.
As a film enthusiast, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern in the Oscars that isn’t just about the exclusion of foreign language films from the Best Picture category. It also often means that mainstream movies contending for Best Picture tend to miss out on Best Director nominations. In many cases, a more commercially successful American film vying for Best Picture might find itself overlooked in favor of a more critically acclaimed foreign movie deemed “artier.
At the 47th Academy Awards, “The Towering Inferno” received a Best Picture nomination and seven other nods, but it lost to François Truffaut’s “Day for Night” in the Best Director category. The following year, Federico Fellini was recognized as Best Director for “Amarcord,” while Steven Spielberg missed out on the same award for his work on “Jaws,” a Best Picture nominee. Similarly, at the 67th Academy Awards, “The Shawshank Redemption” (an adaptation of Stephen King’s work) was nominated for Best Picture but did not receive a Best Director nod. Instead, Krzysztof Kieślowski was recognized for “Three Colours: Red.
Before 2008, it was not uncommon for films nominated for Best Picture to be overlooked in the Best Director category, or vice versa. While most Best Picture nominees received a nod for Best Director, there were often differences in the nominations for these two categories during each Academy Awards ceremony. For instance, throughout the 1990s, 15 movies earned a Best Director Oscar nomination but missed out on a Best Picture nomination. In fact, the first three ceremonies of the decade each had two Best Director nominees whose films were not in contention for Best Picture. This situation was quite common due to the limited number of Best Picture nominees – only five at a time. Consequently, perfect alignment between the Best Director and Best Picture categories was not always achievable.
Things change, though, and for the last 14 Oscars ceremonies, the Best Picture field has consisted of seven to ten nominees. Now that this category significantly outnumbers Best Director in sheer nominees, it’s far more puzzling and less common when films don’t get nods in both domains. In the ten Oscar ceremonies across the 2000s, eight filmmakers got Best Director nominations without also scoring Best Picture recognition. Over the last 14 years, that number’s dwindled to just three.
One intriguing aspect of this set of films is (apart from the Academy’s well-known difficulties in consistently acknowledging foreign language films) the absence of a deliberate plan behind their omission from the Best Picture nominations. It’s essentially a matter of chance. Each of these movies, though, may have suffered due to being released in years with an uncertain number of Best Picture nominees. From 2011 to 2021, the number of Best Picture nominees wasn’t fixed at five or ten annually. Instead, it could vary from six to ten. If a definitive set of ten Best Picture nominations had been available during the years when Foxcatcher, Cold War, and Another Round were released, there’s a high probability they would have made it to that category.
These three films – Foxcatcher, Cold War, and Another Round – are as distinct from each other as can be. Today, they share a unique connection, serving both as reminders of past Academy Award category inconsistencies and intriguing trivia for award season enthusiasts. It’s fascinating to think about the unforeseen ties that link people and creative works. Occasionally, it’s something as obscure yet precise as being the only films released post-2008 to receive Best Director Oscar nominations without also being nominated for Best Picture at the same time.
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2024-10-06 19:16