The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and ABC announced today that the Oscars will expand its Best Picture list to 10 films for next year's ceremony. They're pitching it as a return to tradition but in fact the last time 10 films were nominated for Best Picture was in 1943 when Casablanca won the top prize. (Hmm, since that one triumphed, maybe it's not such a bad idea.)
Obviously, they're still smarting from last year's ceremony when critically acclaimed and wildly popular movies like The Dark Knight and WALL-E weren't in the running. But what do you think? Is this going to cheapen the prestige of being nominated for Best Picture? Or will it broaden the appeal of the Oscars and let the list of nominees actually reflect the range of good movies shown throughout the year?
To refresh your memory, the five nominees for Best Picture from 2008 were:
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionare
With of course, Slumdog becoming top dog. Now based strictly on total number of nominations in every category, if the top nominees became the top picks for Best Picture, the list last year might have been:
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Is that a more exciting list? Of course, nominations don't mean you will automatically make it on the list for Best Picture. Other acclaimed films that might have made it onto the Best Picture list include:
Happy-Go-Lucky
Iron Man
Waltz With Bashir
The Wrestler
If the list means popular and acclaimed films like WALL-E and The Dark Knight are in the mix, it'll be a success. If it just means more art house films like Doubt and Revolutionary Road, the list will rightly be seen as more of the same. Next year, if UP is not nominated for Best Picture, there will rightly be an outcry. Almost as loud an outcry if something commercially successful but godawful like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen does make it.
So what do you think about this radical change by the Oscars?