Written by Connor Zahler:
The Academy Awards, more popularly known as the Oscars, celebrate the year in movies and give recognition to the most outstanding films (and aspects of films) of the year. While they have faced a lot of very fair criticism, most notably regarding a lack of diversity, many stars and regular viewers still see the Oscars as the preeminent award and award show. This past Sunday, the Academy held their 95th show, and we’re going to take a look at some of the numbers behind those awards.
11, 7
In many ways, this was Everything Everywhere All at Once’s show. The film was nominated for 11 awards and won 7, including 3 acting awards. It recently made headlines as the most awarded movie ever. IMDB totals 350 wins and 342 nominations, while Wikipedia lists 264 wins to 404 nominations—I think IMDB lists more obscure awards than Wikipedia does and totals them separately. Whatever the case, EEAAO was the cultural moment of the year. Almost every major narrative of the night ran through it—Ke Huy Quan’s win after a 20-year hiatus, the ultimate crowning of Michelle Yeoh, A24’s ascension from arthouse favorite to true juggernaut—and few people can argue that it wasn’t the movie.
0
Well, they can’t all be winners. Many highly touted movies went home empty handed, including Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Elvis, and Tár. These movies suffered from being released in the same year as EEAAO and fatigue with the same sorts of movies winning these awards every year. Change has been coming for a long time, although I don’t know if anyone could have predicted a Spielberg movie about how much he loves movies not winning a single Oscar. Don’t feel too bad for these movies: they all have their diehard fans, and they’re good enough that they’ll stand the test of time. Few movies inspire people to google the fictional main character, thinking that they’re a real person (reader, please watch Tár).
3
EEAAO may have been the movie of the year, but donkeys were the animal of the year, taking a major role in three nominated movies (Banshees of Inisherin, EO, and Triangle of Sadness). I can say for myself that I have never cared for a movie animal as much as I did for Jenny in Banshees. Hollywood journalists have noted the phenomenon before, but it was officially recognized by host Jimmy Kimmel bringing out a donkey he claimed was the real Jenny and riffing off it. All you need to know about the year of the donkey is the unabashed joy on Colin Farrell’s face as he gazes upon Jenny.
4
Only two movies other than EEAAO won multiple awards: The Whale with 2 and All Quiet on the Western Front with 4. AQotWF was an odd movie to go on a tear. Many people questioned why Netflix was bothering to remake what was already the anti-war movie, and international movies still struggle to gain recognition on a wider scale. Despite these forces, AQotWF was nominated for nine awards, putting it in third for the most for a movie not in English ever received. It was seen as the favorite for International Feature—Best Picture nominees usually win—but it also won for Score, Production Design, and Cinematography. It did not win Sound, one award it has been floated for, but I think the other three more than make up for that.
2
By some miracle, only two unfunny jokes were dedicated to “the Slap,” the incident at the last Oscars where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. For a 15 second moment, it loomed large, at least in the minds of actors, comedians, and the prime minister of Australia, for some reason. Kimmel, mercifully, only referenced it once in the opening—noting the action heroes an attacker would have to go through to reach him—and once after the fact, punning on “going off without a hitch” and Hitch, the Will Smith movie. Perhaps this incident can finally rest and vacate its presence in every single stand-up set.
And The Award Goes To…
While the Academy Awards may have honored the best movies, there was little mention of major quantitative motion pictures. Indeed, 2022 was a down year, with no Big Short or Moneyball to win the hearts of analysts and actors alike. The most we got was titles like Three Thousand Years of Longing and Triangle of Sadness, where there’s at least a reference to math and angles. Truly, there was no balm for statisticians in the Gilead of Hollywood. Maybe Air, the story of Michael Jordan’s blockbuster sponsorship deal, will provide the analytical story of 2023. Until then, we will have to content ourselves with more qualitative films.