“Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.” The title of a top contender at the Oscars could double as the theme of Sunday’s show, as an unusually competitive awards season concludes for an industry that is questioning where its own story is headed.
Going into the 92nd Academy Awards Sunday night, a record-high four movies have 10 nominations or more: “1917,” “The Irishman,” “Joker” and “Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.” Also in this sizable pack of frontrunners is a competitor that could be blazing a historic trail toward a best-picture victory, the South Korean export “Parasite,” with six nominations.
This crop symbolizes some of the issues Hollywood is grappling with during its annual season of self-celebration and self-scrutiny: How to honor the industry’s old guard without blocking the new; rolling with the seismic shifts of streaming culture while preserving the cinematic experience that the Oscars showcase; defining what constitutes greatness on screen, yet reckoning with why that designation seldom includes the work of women and people of color.
“Each individual Oscar category doesn’t tell you much about how those forces are affecting the industry day-to-day, but they are data points that help look at the macro changes,” says Franklin Leonard, founder of the Black List, a film-industry advocacy group and producer known for its annual list of buzzy screenplays that have yet to be produced (which once included “Jojo Rabbit,” now with six Oscar nominations).
Below, a look at five nominees for best picture, whose frontrunner status is based on their tally of Oscar nominations and the momentum that some (especially “1917”) gained from victories at previous awards shows. The other four nominees aiming to disrupt the big race are “Ford v Ferrari,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Little Women” and “Marriage Story.”
Joker’: Supervillain vs. Critics
$55 million est. production budget
$
other nominees
68% favorable critic reviews
88% favorable audience reviews
$335.0 million domestic box office
$896,848 ‘Oscar bump’*
73,630 social mentions†
Comic-book characters have crashed the Academy Awards before, as when “Black Panther” competed for best picture in 2019. “Joker,” with 11 nominations, more than any other movie this year, signifies something different—and more divisive—than just the clout these franchises have in Hollywood.
“Joker” is about a man who spirals into psychosis and, with a pistol and spasms of violence, ignites the resentments simmering in his city. This supervillain origin story drew negative reviews from many film critics who called the movie everything from derivative to dangerous. At the same time, the hit was embraced by members of the movie industry. Awards voters showered nominations on the film and its star Joaquin Phoenix, who is widely expected to win the Oscar for best actor.
The clash of opinions about “Joker” shows how pop-culture wars have become as tense as the political fights roiling the country. “I thought it was just Trump, but now it’s come down to movie reviews,” said actress Cindie Haynie after a recent “Joker” screening for awards voters in Los Angeles, where she praised the “amount of work and incredible artistry” that went into the movie.
The box-office gross of more than $1 billion worldwide (a record for an R-rated release) said more about the support “Joker” received than its 11 Oscar nominations, director and co-writer Todd Phillips said during a Q&A after the screening. “I would say we felt vindicated when we had the audience’s response.”
‘Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood’: Nostalgia Trip
$90 million est. production budget
$
85% favorable critic reviews
70% favorable audience reviews
$142.0 million domestic box office
$905,787 ‘Oscar bump’
73,380 social mentions
The plot of Quentin Tarantino’s latest film revised the facts related to the Manson Family killings of 1969. However, in his depiction of the industry, place and era evoked in the title, the writer and director of “Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood” was lovingly faithful to history.
In addition to the period locations seen as characters drive around (and around) Los Angeles, including showbiz hangouts like Musso & Frank Grill, the movie focuses on the fluctuating hierarchies of Hollywood. That’s captured in the codependent relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, a star actor facing a career slide, and his driver and stunt double, portrayed by Brad Pitt.
In Hollywood, nostalgia for a bygone chapter in the industry has helped sustain support for the movie. For example, Mr. Pitt’s character, though fictional, nodded to the unsung hero status of utility players such as stunt people, a profession that started with “cowboys who were good at falling off horses and hitting the ground hard,” says Katie Rowe, president of the Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures. “That’s our heritage and a source of pride for us.”
“Seeing an A-lister playing one of us was neat to me,” Ms. Rowe said, though she added it also seemed a little ironic given the so-far unsuccessful effort by groups like hers to have an Oscar award created for stunt work.
‘Parasite’: The Upstart Import
$11 million est. production budget
$
99% favorable critic reviews
93% favorable audience reviews
$33.2 million domestic box office
$7.9 million ‘Oscar bump’
57,560 social mentions
When Hollywood executives think about foreign audiences, they’re mostly considering the films they send abroad, not the ones that come to the U.S. This small movie from South Korea took those executives by surprise and underscored the global power of today’s movie industry.
At the Golden Globes, where “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho picked up the trophy for best foreign-language film, he urged audiences to look past the “one-inch-tall barrier” of subtitles and discover new movies made abroad. That speech and the Oscar nomination that followed helped boost the film, whose scalding take on wealth disparity resonated with American viewers.
The movie reinforces the idea that a U.S. studio system driven by superhero pictures couldn't sustain the genre-defying work by many foreign directors. “It’s not the same pressure you would have if you were working for an American studio,” says Steve Ross, a historian specializing in Hollywood and politics. “Many foreign films aren’t going through the elaborate bureaucracy you’re going through in Hollywood.”
‘The Irishman’: Classic Film, Netflix -Style
$160 million est. production budget
$
96% favorable critic reviews
86% favorable audience reviews
N/A domestic box office
N/A ‘Oscar bump’
91,440 social mentions
Like a greatest hits album of Martin Scorsese movies, the film was studded with the director’s hallmarks—a mob-world character study laced with bursts of violence and unexpected moments of reflection. Audiences viewed it with a sense of history, wondering if this could be the last time they watched some of the most celebrated artists of a generation working together.
But for all the nostalgia viewers may have brought to the experience, the movie owes a debt to the modern streaming world. Netflix cleared the path for a winding epic nearly twice the length of a typical film, a movie that reached so far back in time it needed to apply reverse-aging technology to the faces of its stars. The picture played in limited theatrical release and hit Netflix soon after.
“The streaming aspect certainly worked for that three-and-a-half-hour film,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the box-office tracker Comscore. “If you didn’t have the time, you could watch the movie in chunks. I don’t know if that’s what any filmmaker ultimately wants, but of course every filmmaker wants their movie to be seen.”
‘1917’: Modern Take, Historic War
$90 million est. production budget
$
89% favorable critic reviews
88% favorable audience reviews
$119.1 million domestic box office
$79.4 million ‘Oscar bump’*
68,560 social mentions
*The movie went into wide release after the nominations were announced
Director Sam Mendes took the World War I movie out of the trenches and into real time with a technique aimed at making the film look like one continuous tracking shot of live action. The result was a big-screen spectacle that demanded to be seen in theaters.
Filming the drama was like making a stage play while running, its creators have said, with few chances for reshoots. In an era where movies are made in post-production, this one arrived in the editing room largely intact.
The movie’s insistence on real life over special effects had fans putting it in the same pantheon as Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 World War I classic “Paths of Glory” and Peter Jackson’s technically masterful 2018 documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old,” which restored and modernized archival war footage.
“A lot of times when I start on a movie, I’m given cut footage, but this was different,” says Thomas Newman, who composed the film’s music. “I was never going to be surprised by a different way of editing the material. The drama was never going to be different and the timing was never going to be different. The material was essentially going to be as it was when I first saw it.”
Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com and John Jurgensen at john.jurgensen@wsj.com
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