The 88th Academy Awards will honour the films of 2015. The award ceremony, titled the 2016 Oscars, will be telecast live worldwide to, according to the Academy, “a several hundred million viewers.” The three-hour show costs about $40 million to produce (each Oscar statuette costs about $900) and earns almost $100 million in revenues. How much does the host get paid? Well, not much, only about $30,000.
However, what really matters are the awards, and the most important award of them all is the Best Picture award – Casablanca (1943), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Godfather (1972) – have all won it.
How these Best Pictures get nominated and eventually selected is the most fascinating thing about the Oscars. Unlike all the other awards featured in the show, the Best Picture Oscar goes through a unique and grueling process.
Firstly, the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are asked to rank their Top 5 films of the year in a ballot. The lists then go through a statistical formula, and any film that gets over the magic number of 241 votes, can get nominated. Based on the system, there can be between five to 10 Best Picture nominations. This year eight films got nominated. Five years ago, 10 films got nominated. From 1944 to 2008, only five films got nominated each year.
The voting process is also unique. Each member is asked to rank the nominated films and then a special method called preferential voting selects the winner by recursive elimination. So it’s much easier to predict all other categories, which use traditional tick-the-favourite voting, than it’s to predict Best Picture.
Here’s my ranking of the eight nominated films, along with some predictions.
8. BROOKLYN
Saoirse Ronan shines in this coming-of-age tale of how a shy girl transforms into a confident independent woman.
7. ROOM
The most heartfelt film of the year is about the most pure form of love, the love between mother and child. Jacob Tremblay is amazing as the son. Brie Larson, as the mother, is everyone’s favorite candidate for Best Actress.
6. BRIDGE OF SPIES
Spielberg’s film about the importance of communication even with an arch-enemy, has Tom Hanks, as the embodiment of great American ideals, and Mark Rylance who will surely win Best Supporting Actor, as the honourable enemy.
5. SPOTLIGHT
This magnificent film about journalism is a work of journalism unto itself. The screenplay is among the best ever written and should win the Oscar.
4. THE BIG SHORT
How did director Adam McKay turn Michael Lewis’ non-fiction bestseller about the stock market into an outrageous tragicomedy? Pure cinematic magic.
3. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
A hundred action films cannot equal this one’s excitement.
2. THE REVENANT
This film about the genocide of the Native Americans got 12 Oscar nominations. Can director Alejandro Iñárritu win again like last year? Maybe. Does Leonardo DiCaprio really deserve an Oscar for his performance? Absolutely!
1. THE MARTIAN
If this tribute to science and universal-brotherhood wins Best Picture it will be the first ever science-fiction to get it – let’s hope it happens!
We are grateful the top three nominated films were released in Dhaka this year and we are hopeful more meaningful films will be released next year. For films are not just for our tongues and stomachs, films are also for our eyes and hearts.