I wasn’t planning on resuscitating this blog until September, but with news this huge, I’ll gladly make an exception. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that it will name 10 Best Picture nominees next year instead of five. Yes, that’s right: TEN Best Picture nominees! “After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,” said AMPAS president Sid Ganis. “The final outcome, of course, will be the same—one Best Picture winner—but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.” In the ’30s and ’40s the Academy recognized between 8 and 12 Best Picture nominees each year.
Several groups, like the Broadcast Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, and the American Film Institute, have already been listing 10 best films of the year instead of five. And with the Oscars now doing the same, I’d say this could really help the chances of some more commercially popular films, which are often edged out of the running by typical “Academy films” like The Reader or Frost/Nixon. Certainly The Dark Knight and WALL•E would have made a top 10 Academy list this year—will we now see Up and Star Trek on the Oscar ballot?
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I think this is pretty darn AMAZING, Dave. I just saw this break myself, and wow, it just changes a lot of the dynamics of the race. Though LORD, I usually make one themed dessert for each of the Best Picture Nominees. This will break me!
I like this change … obviously done to fit in some more popular (but still high-quality) films, or at least make the race more interesting. I look forward to the Oscars every year, but hopefully this doesn’t mean a 5-hour telecast. The show will require a serious reboot.
They still need a best ensemble award.
If only they had done this last year, we would have seen The Dark Knight up there. Same with WALL-E.
Dave, is there any thought of eliminating the Best Animated Feature category then? It would seem superfluous to continue having it.
The Oscars just got really interesting again!
Wow – this is huge news! I echo what someone below said: will this eliminate the Best Animated Film category? I’ve always hated that category anyway……
It’s hard enough for me, with a young child, to see the 5 best picture noms every year – seeing 10 is going to kill me! But I’ll do it, all in the name of the Oscars.
I hate this. Expanding the field makes the nomination itself less meaningful. Here’s a radical idea — rather than widening the field to pander for PR and greater mass appeal, why not just remove the pole from the stodgy collective rear end of the overall Academy and nominate better films in the first place.
Good move!
They had to do something different as the Oscars are downright boring. The “five” films the past few years have been things no one saw, or even wanted to see. Good for them on the change!
This is not going to help.
They just need to bite the bullet and have two separate best picture categories: one for drama, and one for everything else (the types of films that don’t stand a chance against the typical best picture winner, i.e. animated, comedies, etc.)
This is surprising. I guess I didn’t know my Hollywood history in terms of the Oscar’s. I didn’t know the early age of Oscar had more than 5 nominees. This could be good for some films. Giving more films the chance to possibily win. Dark Knight (even though I didn’t think it was worthy) would definately have been nominated until this new system. I am not sure Wall-E. Frost/Nixon definately deserved to be nominated… Could be a interesting race.
Whether Star Trek and Up have a chance. But I do know some of the films that open up earlier in the year like in the past; Zodiac would have had a better chance since they would be looking for more than the usuaal five candidates.
This could be very good for Oscar. But then hopefully there is 10 quality films out and they don’t just get nominated because they did well at the box office.
But I approve of this.
As soon as I heard about this I thought, “I wonder what Dave Karger has to say about this.” Thanks for posting for the first time in months. Can’t wait for Oscar Watch 2010!
Too bad “Beauty & the Beast” might not have the previlage of being the only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture anymore, but “Up” is a terrific film.
Wow, this is the first piece of Oscar news in ages I’ve cared about. Not only will this help really good commercial films get in the race (Dark Knight, etc.), it will help great comedies too, which are almost always excluded, and leave room for a few more indie and offbeat choices too. This is really what the awards biz needed!
watch the entire news
http://watchcelebrity.com/
OK I’ve thought about this some more, and now I hate this idea. As other posters have noted, this is just a way to get “popular” films into the list of nominees and, thus, increase viewership for the Oscars. Academy, PLEASE: stop worrying about viewership of the Oscar ceremony. Those of us who love film want to see GOOD films honored, and unfortunately, the crap that pleases the masses is not often good. I’m glad the likes of Wall-E or Dark Knight might get a nod now, but for heavens sakes, if Transformers ends up being a moneymaker this summer, that doesn’t mean it should be nominated!!
Very interesting move by the academy. There will no doubt be less controversy now about who gets nominated. A dark knight incident probably won’t happen again now. Is the director category going to expand as well?
Have to agree with Dan below. I’d rather they just nominate the best movies of the year, regardless of popularity, etc.
Plus, can you imagine how much LONGER this is going to make an already long telecast?? Yikes.
I think I’m still a little angry over The Dark Knight snub, so I’m kind of flipping out that they didn’t do this last year. Certainly, other institutes that have done 10 choose pretty well, but I’m a little frustrated because there WILL be a few filler films in the top 10; some prestige films that really aren’t that good (although maybe they are good) but are groomed specifically for the Oscars (read: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader being nominated last year). I admire the effort for change the Academy is showing (although I wish they’d retract the poor idea of five random past winners presenting and go back to the clips… I love the clips!), but still, I’m not sure that this will work as well as one might hope. But then again, like I said, other institutes have managed to choose pretty well in the past. This certainly can open up the doors to movies as different as Tropic Thunder, The Dark Knight, and The Visitor. Here’s to hoping this is a positive move.
i truly think 10 is way too much. maybe 6 noms but 10????? im not feeling it. if they divided the movies up like comedies, drama, or sci-fi and pick 5 for each i wud like that better…..
This is clearly a case of the Academy trying to have its cake and eat it too. This way, go ahead and nominate Dark Knight and Wall*E type movies to pump up interest and ratings, then sit back and let films that are critical but not fan favorites take the award every year. Maybe if foreign films and other specialty films are included often then I’ll be wrong; I doubt it, though. This, to me, waters down the Oscars and what it means to be nominated for Best Picture. (I mean, just today, following this announcement, I’ve already read Star Trek and The Hangover being thrown out as possibly benefiting from this change. Come on! Both were OK, but neither hardly broke any new ground or was anything earthshaking.
Hardly broke any new ground? The Hangover overtook Beverly Hills Cop to become the biggest R Rated comedy of all time.
The Road
Nine
Public Enemies
UP
Shutter Island
The Invention of Lying
The Boat that Rocked
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
The Lovely Bones
Something Good
Wow – quite a surprise and I’m not sure I think this is a change for the better. Predicting the nominees will certainly become a lot easier if we’re looking at 10. But I think it will water down the exclusive nature of being a Best Picture nominee. Are there really 10 possible best pictures in most years? So far this year it’s been a pretty dismal crop. I think we’ll start to see a lot of mediocre, but popular, movies get nominated with this change.
The Road
Nine
Public Enemies
UP
Shutter Island
The Invention of Lying
The Boat that Rocked
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
The Lovely Bones
Something Good
Hmmm… I see the point in doing this. More “worthy” pictures that both critics and audiences like will be nominated. But I do agree it does take the prestige a little (as if Oscars really have any pull whatsoever now). However, it is not the same to be one of ten instead of one of five. And also, the voting might be really diluted with ten, paving the way for the continuing trend of unworthy films winning. Many will like “Up.” Others will like “Star Trek” if those were nominated, but then to choose one may split the vote. Too much rambling.
Why not expand all the major categories to 10? That way EW can start it’s Megan Fox Best Actress campaign today. Since everything on this site recently is about Megan Fox or John & Kate
I think that 10 is too munch… perhaps 7 would have been a better number.
Also, I agree with Tom: A Best Ensemble category really does need to be introduced. I know the SAGs has one, but as I know was said in the past, it’s their equivalent of a Best Picture Award; if the Oscars had a Best Ensemble Award, they’d actually go with the Best ENSEMBLE, not necessarily the Best FILM. Although I think Milk was better than Slumdog Millionaire overall, I was beyond shocked and a tad bit upset when Slumdog beat out Milk for SAG’s Best Cast.
Why don’t we nominate everyone and everything until, like the Emmy Awards, everyone who works in the industry has a nomination just for showing up. This is the beginning of the end of the significance of the Oscars. There are never ten movies worthy of nomination. Being a Best Picture nominee will soon be meaningless.