ROTTEN TOMATOES: Academy Expands Number of Best Picture Nominees to 10 Comments

Academy Expands Number of Best Picture Nominees to 10

by | June 24, 2009

Summary

With today's news that in February, the Oscars will field 10 best-picture nominees, the horserace that is the Academy Awards promises to look a lot more like - a horserace. "This year [when Slumdog Millionaire emerged victorious], five formidable films were nominated, but The Dark Knight, Iron Man and WALL.e were not," Academy president Sid Ganis said yesterday by phone. "We've felt for a while that we should widen the net of nominees." Back to Article

(1-20 of 71 posts) | Reply

tomwaitsjr writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:00 PM

Stupid. Just more movies to cancel each other out. Just a gimmick so more films can say "Nominated for best film of the year."

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Floor Man writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:12 PM

Uh. WTF?

This, in the end, will just make it harder (most of the time) for the Academy voters to have a *strong* majority vote, and thus, a *strong* winner. Consequently, the quality of the actual Best Picture winner(s) will be quite diminished compared to before now.

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Byron H. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:17 PM

Why complain? There are atleast 10 good movies a year combined between mainstream and non. Those movies deserve to be noticed.....no?

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oddjob323 writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:18 PM

In reply to this comment (#2516790)
The more the merrier, I say. I don't think the quality will be any less because a great movie should win no matter how many nominees there are.

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scifimark writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:19 PM

that argument makes no sense. If you feel a movie is the best it doesnt matter if there are 5,10,or 30. It wont diminish anything

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man in the water writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:21 PM

This could be good. I like it this year, it gives Star Trek, and Up a chance. Who knows maybe even The Hangover, and my favorite Angels & Demons. However this could as Floor Man said leave many loose ends. With 5 its a much tighter ship, 10 its way more open

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TheCaptain of TeamLoyalty writes:
on Jun 24 2009 06:37 PM

Yet Disney/Pixar is still going to get screwed over.

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on Jun 24 2009 07:02 PM

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Jon J. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:22 PM

I guess the outrcy over the snubbing of TDK, Wall-E, and The Wrestler got to them. Hence this new rule.

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De4ective Detectiv3 writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:22 PM

C'mon Captain, there are better movies than Pixar/Disney that get shafted. I hate to break it to you but those are children's movies, they aren't exactly 'deep' compared to, I don't know, The Savages, which garnered no love from the academy.

If anything, we should be more upset that movies like 'Crash' take home best picture.

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tomwaitsjr writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:30 PM

The Wrestler was the best film of 2008, IMO.

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MadMan23 writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:35 PM

Hopefully there will be ten great movies this year unlike last year.
In Bruges, Wall-E, Dark Knight and The Wrestler were all robbed by mediocre Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, and Benjamin Button.

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Logan A. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:47 PM

I haven't seen 10 good movies this year yet. Mostly disappointments to me (wolverine, terminator, TRANSFORMERS 2. The only good couple of films Ive seen this year is The Hangover. I never saw Star Trek. So idk where they are going to find 10 good pictures. But we still have the winter movie season. I just hope that Public Enemies doesn't disappoint.

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ColinTheCimmerian writes:
on Jun 24 2009 07:59 PM

This is an interesting bit of news. 10 nominations means more movies will be recognized in some capacity, but in the end, to quote Highlander, there can be only one, so I don't really see the point. I'd kind of prefer to see two separate Best Picture categories, like the Golden Globes does, separating dramas from other genre films. Of course the problem with that is then one 'Best Picture' ends up with more prestige then another 'Best Picture', or there's controversy about whether a given movie should be eligible in one category or the other, or both.

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ARTaylor writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:21 PM

I think they should nominate as many films as they think truly qualify. If it's just two then nominate two. If it's ten then nominate ten. Last year was such a great example for the need to expand. There were so many good films between Slumdog, Dark Knight, and Wall-E that so many more should have been recognized.

This year, however, I'm not so sure what they would pick. Certainly Star Trek has all this buzz but Best Picture material it is not. And what else does mainstream have? Terminator? Wolverine? And Public Enemies could go either way. Last year would have been better timing to expand, but who knows what next year will bring.

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WileyMan writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:27 PM

This decision has nothing to do with merit; it's all about money. More films will earn the "nominated" label with hope that people will go see more movies. It appeases all the critics and fanboys who complain about how such-and-such was snubbed. And they hope that more people will tune in to see the Oscars. I love how they are selling this change by saying "the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots." The Academy limited it to five for a reason and I bet they will change it back to five within a few years. While this makes for a tighter race I worry how many more CRASH like mistakes we'll witness.

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Logan A. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:30 PM

Even though Wall-E was a great film, I don't think that animated films should be in the Best picture category. Nor should documentaries.

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Mike W. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:31 PM

Maybe we can see some more involvement by dumb kids nominating bull**** New Moon

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Mike W. writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:31 PM

.. I was just kidding by the way

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ColinTheCimmerian writes:
on Jun 24 2009 08:35 PM

Well there usually aren't much in the way of mainstream movies nominated anyway. With a few exceptions I wouldn't expect most major studio releases of the last decade to be nominated no matter how many nominations were allowed. I think we'll see more possible Oscar contenders show up in the fall season. I like the idea of not having any set limit on the number of nominations though. I'd be ok with any movie that at least, say, 20 or 30 members of the AMPAS think is the best film of the year being given an official nomination.

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