How this year’s Oscar nominations cement Netflix’s dominance in filmmaking business

It was a surprise to cinephiles when Netflix announced that it would both produce and release auteur Martin Scorsese’s epic mafia film The Irishman. For a director of immense experience in the industry who has added some incredible cinematic creations to his filmography, a Scorsese project being released on a streaming platform was the digital giant’s statement—that it was capable of owning and distributing content that could emerge as top contenders in the award season.

Its pursuit to become a filmmaking behemoth seems to have come to a full circle, as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) revealed its nominations for the year’s Oscars. With a total of 24 nods, Netflix has easily beaten out their rival studios to garner the most number of nominations by any studio for the 92^nd Academy Awards.

Netflix owes much of this achievement to two films—Scorsese’s The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. Both have secured a combined number of 16 nominations, with both films finding their place in the race for the statuette for Best Picture. The Irishman has nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese), 2 nods for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci and Al Pacino), Best Adapted Screenplay (Steven Zaillian) and Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto). It even secured a nod for Best Visual Effects, considering its impeccable work in successfully de-aging its septuagenarian leads.

Marriage Story, one of the critically acclaimed films of the year, secured top nominations for Best Picture, while it also recognised the stupendous performances of its leads, who portrayed the distressed couple, with nods for both Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively. Laura Dern, who bagged the Golden Globe for her performance, also found place in the list of nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Other nods for the movie included Best Original Score (Randy Newman) and Best Original Screenplay (Noah Baumbach).

The Two Popes, a Fernando Meirelles directorial, was another Netflix release that found recognition from the Academy. Jonathan Pryce’s portrayal of Pope Francis received a Best Actor nod, while his co-star Anthony Hopkins secured a Best Supporting Actor nod for his role as Pope Benedict XVI. The third nomination for The Two Popes went to Anthony McCarten for Best Adapted Screeplay.

Klaus, Netflix’s animated rendition of Santa Claus’s origin story, and I Lost My Body, bagged nods for Best Animated Feature, while Netflix documentaries, The Edge of Democracy and American Factory, received nominations for Best Documentary Feature, totaling Netflix’s number of nominations to 24.

Netflix narrowly beat out the colossal Disney, who secured 23 nods, and Sony, with 20 nominations to its name.

Netflix’s Oscar campaign had a notable start in 2014, when it secured a nomination for Best Documentary for The Square. The streaming platform’s biggest success to date in the Dolby Theater was when Roma, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, secured 10 nominations, and ended the night with three awards to its name. It was also in contention for Best Picture, which it eventually lost to Green Book.

Netflix has, through years of financing and producing original content, become a formidable force in the industry. Its haul of 24 Oscar nods cements the digital giant’s dominance in this year’s award season, and also becomes a harbinger for the paradigm shift that the industry could see in a few years. Its distribution of films that boast of names as legendary as Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Noah Baumbach and, now, Steven Soderbergh (his The Laundromat is set to release on Netflix), is a positive sign for Netflix in that direction.