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Next Year's Oscars will Include 10 Best Picture Nominees!

by Alex Billington
June 24, 2009

This is huge news. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced today, that as of next year for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, for the first time in 67 years, they will choose ten Best Picture Nominees instead of just five. "Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," said Academy president Sid Ganis. This isn't the first time they've chosen ten nominees. Up through 1943, the Oscars included ten Best Picture nominees as well.

“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 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." It's now being called 10 in 2010. Some are claiming that this decision was made under pressure from the studios, as it allows them to feature more great movies and include more advertising at the Oscars. Others are saying this will now water down the Oscars, since a nomination "used to be" a prestigious recognition.

I'd argue that this just makes things so much more interesting. One of the biggest complaints of last year was that The Dark Knight didn't get nominated. If only it had been one year later, it would've gotten that nomination. It also just makes the final outcome so much more of a mystery. I've felt like that out of the five nominees in the past few years, we can usually spot the winners. This time there will be so much of a bigger selection to choose from, that it could be even more thrilling to see who the Academy eventually picks. Whatever the case, this is exciting news, and should make for a very interesting Oscar race next year.

Explore tags: Movie News, Opinions

Stigs

Dumb idea that will make it easier for studios to "buy" the best picture award
d

It still won't matter. It would really make a difference if they gave out 2 Best Picture Awards. That would be something to talk about and they should stick to the same rules. And it would be less difficult to chose 2/5 then 1/10 or 2/10.
germs

This will just allow the studios to include "Oscar nominee for best picture" on the dvd cover...
Al

im one of those who thinks nominations will now be less prestigious. the only thing im sure will happen now is Inglourious Basterds and Funny People getting nominated. I mean Basterds isn't exactly an Oscar film but 5 more nominees may get it its spot. As for Funny People, in Ganis full speech he says they will be more open to comedies. Of course I haven't seen either film, just predicting.
http://digaphobia.com Mark

The two Academy voters I know both watch fewer than half the nominated films, and tend to be openly biased toward and against certain studios/directors, so I don't think a wider selection is going to benefit anyone. Plus, are there really going to be ten best picture quality films released this year? No. No, no, no, no, no. As for TDK not being nominated, who the hell cares? The movie was incredible, made an amazing amount of money, and _NEVER_ would have won no matter how many films were considered for the Oscar.
crumb

I stopped caring about the oscars long ago. I mean, just look at last year: Slumdog millionaire was not worthy of all those.
cat

and the oscar goes to: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen! lol
http://digaphobia.com Mark

#4 - The Academy being more receptive to comedies is wonderful and all, but they could do so just as well when only considering nominations for five films. As for Basterds, it's exactly what I said above, they're going to be scraping around for films to fill up the list. It seems to me that the only reason for increasing the number of considered films is to allay concerns about certain films not being nominated (the aforementioned TDK). The five extras won't really be in the running for an Oscar.
http://digaphobia.com Mark

Sorry, one more thing: All things being equal, if there ever are ten deserving films, a larger field of competitors will only spread the votes out more thinly. For fuck's sake, the winning film only has to receive a little more than ten percent of the vote. That doesn't seem like a legitimate win to me.
http://www.tomvatterott.blogspot.com Tom V

The top movie will still win Best Picture (in the long run, odd years here and there because of the "Holy shit that movie got the nom!!" effect) each year. I think this is great, because its about recognition, not so much actually getting the Oscar. For example, take Pan's Labyrinth. I think it should have been nominated for Best Picture hands down. With 10 places, great movies like this will be heard of all the more (thank you #8/9).
http://digaphobia.com Mark

#10 - I agree completely - in the right circumstances a (not traditionally considered) Oscar film can generate a lot more attention, especially with a better chance at nomination. But how many small/off-genre/animated films will actually be nominated? I guess it remains to be seen. The Academy could absolutely make this work if they truly make an effort to open the nominations up, but I'm still unhappy with the issues I addressed in earlier posts.
http://www.tomvatterott.blogspot.com Tom V

#11- I see what you're saying. More nominees does not mean that the deserving films will get nominated (its more of a hope for me ). 8 spots may work better; harder to get into, but still room for non contenders.
RandyG

Enough slumming. After last year's truly putrid nominees (except Frost/Nixon) and the down on the knees blowjob for Bollywood bucks (Somedog Shit Film), there's no longer any question, the Oscars are as meaningful as MTV's Best Onscreen Kiss award. From now on, if a film's nominated, I skip it (except for Avatar, which will of course be the best film of the year AND be nominated AND win every category it's nominated in). All foreigners who even attempt to make movies should be ass raped (except James Cameron, of course, who WILL be nominated for Best Director next year, who will WIN Best Director next year, and who will win every film honor that can be bestowed on a living OR dead human being).
sleepykid

Hey, Hollywood - ticket sales down, perchance? Sounds like a marketing trick to me.
ebbie

I guess now there may be more drama at the awards since the larger field and spread out votes may allow for a surprise winner. This may also be a bad thing.
Hobbes

This just lets them nominate "fan favorites" in an effort to drum up more viewers, even though they have no chance of winning. I can see them nominating Twilight just to grab all those twi-hards who might otherwise not watch the awards.
SlashBeast

I gave up on the Academy Awards a long time ago. I seriously don't know why we still consider them to be so prestigious. The same drama/holocaust films released 2 months before the end of the year always get nominated and everything else gets stuck in technical categories. Look at 2008, the completely typical and safe romance drama, Slumdog Millionaire, made a sweep at the Oscars. The only reason it deserved to win is because it was probably the best film nominated, not the best film of the year. Expanding the amount of nominations will be better for getting more representation for the wide variety of films released every year. But, as some have stated, a film only needs to receive slightly more than 10% of the vote in order to be considered the "Best Picture of the Year". It'll be a bit more interesting though.
Jeep-Fu

So instead of 5 movies I've never seen (nor would I want to see) there will be 10? All the while they snub my favorite movies? ...No thanks.
Stephen

this is silly. I would have gladly supprted expanding it to 6 nominations, or even possibly 7, but 10 is ridiculus. They got rid of this system back in the forties for good reason, and I agree that this just sounds like a marketing ploy.
http://www.skonmovies.com Sean Kelly

Double the nominations? Why don't they just nominate every film that came out during the year? I don't like this.
Keith

"Up" is sooooooooo getting nominated for best picture!
JimD

Totally for marketing purposes.
wm

are they going to let Dark Knight in so all the cry babies will get there chance, or does everyone not feel as strong about the film as they did last year.
http://Firstshowing.net The lord of the dance

#17 nailed it. We need more variety in the major MAJOR awards like best pic, best actor, etc. It's just the same old "feel good" movies and the 124th Holocaust movie(no offense.) It's all apart of the general bias the academy has against sci fi\comedy\etc. Because let's face it, we are never going have another LOTR type thong where a (gasp) movie with actual ACTION gets a best pic nod or win.
RandyG

#24: "... we are never going have another LOTR type thong where a (gasp) movie with actual ACTION gets a best pic nod or win." No action/SF? Again, next year's winner is already in the envelop: Avatar.
Vic

That's not enough! I want them to issue a FORMAL APOLOGY about The Dark Knight not getting nominated and I want them to give the film an honorary nomination in 2010. Then I'll be happy (maybe)...
http://Firstshowing.net The lord of the dance

God what is with all this avatar fanboyism here? We have barely even seen a poster! I'm calling it now, Avatar will be a major critical(not financial) flop, at least for these die hard fans that seem to have been breeding in firstshowing.
Governor

@ #23 Quit trolling. The Dark Knight came out in 2008, this year is 2009. I too am getting a bit tired of everyone claiming that Avatar ig going to be the greatest (x). We know next to NOTHING about the film and really, no one can claim anything until we at least see a trailer. Sure it might revolutionize the way we film, then again it could be a one-time thing that may quickly be forgotten. In the end, if the story for Avatar doesn't hold up then it won't be worth the hype. I think the expansion of the amount of nominations is a bit excessive (7-8 may have been better) but I think it will finally allow films other than the trite October-December dramas to get nominated. And maybe this will be the year the Academy finally pulls their heads out of their elitist asses and nominates a Pixar film.
Ajax

Oh, I am excited for this. We may finally get to see some ENTERTAINING pitures nominated than just the same old boring films.
bozoconnors

So "Nominated for Best Picture" means even less now. Lame.
Jess

Seems like a lot of people are concerned about the expansion somehow diminishing the award:http://www.newsy.com/videos/oscars_and_then_there_were_ten I don't think this will happen, everyone has a movie they thought should be nominated (and it is probably Dark Knight, though I would add the excellent and underrated In Bruges to that list) So I think that if people agree with the choice of movies the integrity of the award will remain in tact. In fact it will be more legitimate because people will perceive it as reasonable competition.