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Why the Expanded Best Picture Field is the Best Thing the Oscars Have Ever Done
A look at the benefits of the 2009 decision to expand the Best Picture field at the Oscars
Approximately 15 years ago, pressure was on the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (otherwise known as the Oscars) to stop nominating films that were insular and didn’t register at the box office. When outrage erupted over the failure to nominate The Dark Knight or Wall-E for the 2008 Oscars, the Academy decided to expand the nominee field. This has been one of the best things to happen to moviedom in the past 15 years.
In the 80s and 90s, films like Rain Man, Field of Dreams, Ghost, Forrest Gump, The Fugitive, Titanic, and The Sixth Sense checked off the twin boxes of blockbuster and Oscar.
The Dark Knight and Wall-E each had their ghettoes to overcome — a super-hero blockbuster in the case of the former, and animation in the case of the latter — but these were widely hailed as masterpieces that pushed those genres forward. What’s more is that they made a lot of money.
Of the Best Picture nominees that year, three of them — Frost/Nixon, Milk, and The Reader — grossed between $18 and $36 million that year, which would be considered a flop even for a mid-budget film. It helped that…
