The cheapest ‘Best Picture’ winner of all time
The Oscars have awarded many big-budget blockbusters the coveted ‘Best Picture’ title, ranging from the costly $200million budget epic Titanic to the widely celebrated 2003 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. But amidst the big spenders, the Academy has also recognised a number of low-cost indies throughout the years.
Some of the smallest budget ‘Best Picture’ winners include the 1976 boxing classic Rocky at $4.6m and Chloé Zhao’s 2020 indie film Nomadland at $5m. However, the title for the cheapest movie to win the award goes to Barry Jenkins’ 2016 coming-of-age Moonlight.
A24 decided to finance Moonlight in 2013, and the film began the company’s foray into production, immediately winning them a ‘Best Picture’ title. Despite backing from indie heavyweight A24 and a production company headed by Brad Pitt, the budget stayed small at just $1.5m.
Each element of the film’s production cleverly worked around this low cost. Jenkins chose actors who were fairly early on in their careers to star, casting Ashton Sanders as young Chrion and Trevante Rhodes as adult Chiron. Both actors had little acting experience before the movie – Sanders had appeared in a small role in Straight Outta Compton while Rhodes had featured in Westworld, but they had both been limited to supporting roles in their careers so far.
The film was also shot in Jenkins’ hometown in Florida, which both increased the story’s authenticity and the ease of shooting as his relatives were still living in the area. They also shot in a small time frame – Naomie Harris filmed her scenes in just three days. Cinematographer James Laxton has even shared that the entire thing was shot using a singular Arri Alexa XT. He told Time: “The whole thing was one camera. We never had two cameras, actually.”
Despite its humble beginnings, Moonlight became one of the most influential films of the decade. Sanders and Rhodes delivered breakthrough performances that accelerated their careers from supporting to starring roles – Sanders has since featured in The Equalizer 2 and the 2022 Whitney Houston biopic, while Rhodes led the Netflix hit Bird Box alongside Sandra Bullock.
Jenkins has also noted the impact on other filmmakers, telling IndieWire: “One of the things I’m most proud about with Moonlight is what I’ve heard from friends: They’re trying to raise funds for a film that’s $2million, or $3million, and nobody can tell them that’s too small to reach an audience. You can’t get smaller than Moonlight, and the audience reach was beyond my wildest dreams.”
At the Academy Awards in 2017, Moonlight received eight nominations and won three – ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’, the latter of which was given to Mahershala Ali, who became the first Muslim to take home an acting award. Perhaps most impressively, the small-budget indie made waves culturally. The first feature to show the LGBTQ+ experience with an all-black cast, Moonlight platformed a story that hadn’t been seen on the big screen before, and it did it with heart and care.
The ‘Best Picture’ win only served to bring the story to wider audiences.
