The highest-grossing movie never to be nominated for ‘Best Picture’
No filmmaker gets into the field to win trophies. While being applauded and respected for your work might be appreciated in the moment, it’s all about how you make your audience feel when they sit in a theatre and are transported to another world on the screen. People might decide on whether a movie might be good, but the word of public opinion is never the be-all and end-all. Despite having some of the highest-grossing movies nominated, the most popular movies don’t always get top billing at the Oscars.
For a brief period, the Academy Awards and public opinion did align, like giving Gone With the Wind the ‘Best Picture’ award in 1939. However, as the summer blockbuster became a more lucrative format, some of the biggest films in the world fell into the Academy’s blind spot.
While Jurassic Park had its fair share of accolades as the highest-grossing film of all time back in 1993, the Academy did not see it in the same running as the more dramatic films of that year. As a result, the dinosaur epic remains the highest-grossing movie never to be nominated for ‘Best Picture’. In 2009, everything began to align between the Oscars and public opinion. As James Cameron’s Avatar blew minds worldwide for its effects and cinematic scope, the establishment acknowledged the sheer weight of creation that went into the production with a nod for ‘Best Picture’. Though the movie won ‘Best Cinematography and Effects’, the night’s biggest award went to The Hurt Locker.
Almost a decade after the Navi dazzled movie theatres worldwide, the Marvel Cinematic Universe nearly dethroned Cameron’s epic. While the entire journey with the Avengers team was a long time coming, Avengers Endgame gave fans everything they could have asked for, concluding storylines from different series and having every hero the adoring audience loved on hand to defeat the powerful villain, Thanos.
However, once Oscar season came out, Endgame was nowhere to be seen on the ballot for ‘Best Picture’. While it picked up an Oscar for ‘Best Visual Effects’ that night, the lack of nominations on the whole sent fans into a frenzy because of how badly they were snubbed. Disney had even sent several actors in as ‘for your consideration’ for the Oscars, all of which were all turned down.
Then again, the Academy Awards has always had a standoffish relationship with superhero movies. While they might rake in huge paydays at the box office, most awards for these films go to ‘Costume Design’ or ‘Visual Effects’. Though Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix were given Academy Awards for their distinct portrayals of the Joker, the core story behind these films has yet to get a ‘Best Picture’ nod. Even in their more celebrated categories, the MCU was ignored by the Academy for a while, even awarding Suicide Squad with ‘Best Costume Design’ despite its reputation as one of the genre’s most polarising movies. The same could be said for genres like horror, with movies like Hereditary garnering rave reviews and stalling out at the Academy Awards.
As the comic book movie market becomes more saturated, the Academy has started to turn around on the medium, nominating movies like Logan for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ and Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, winning ‘Best Animated Feature’ back in 2019. If a superhero film were nominated for ‘Best Picture’ now, it might be too little too late. Since the box office is flooded with different superhero movies, one must stand out for the Academy to recognise it as something special.
Despite the Oscars turning their nose up at certain superhero films, the people behind the film are still satisfied with the stories they tell. When talking about Robert Downey Jr.’s performance throughout the MCU, Jon Favreau mentioned it being phenomenal regardless of award buzz, saying: “if you look at, especially how it began and how it ended in his performances between the first one and ‘Endgame,’ there was a really thoughtful arc to the character, both in his performance and how all the filmmakers contributed to that character”.
