Oscars 2016: Why has no sci-fi movie ever won Best Picture?
The films 'The Martian' and 'Mad Max: Fury Road' are nominated for Best Picture this year. Do either of them have a chance of becoming the first science fiction movie to take the big prize?
'The Martian,' starring Matt Damon, is nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Picture.
Aidan Monaghan/20th Century Fox/AP/File
This year, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, some of the best films looked beyond our own world.聽
Two of the nominees for the 2016 Oscar Best Picture are 鈥淭he Martian,鈥� based on Andy Weir鈥檚 novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars, and 鈥淢ad Max: Fury Road,鈥� set in a future dystopia where both water and gasoline are scarce.
The two sci-fi nominees are raising eyebrows, as no sci-fi film has ever won Best Picture and 鈥済enre鈥� films in general rarely receive the statuette. The only fantasy film to ever win Best Picture was the 2003 movie 鈥淭he Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King鈥� and the only horror movie to win Best Picture was the 1991 psychological thriller 鈥淭he Silence of the Lambs.鈥澛�
Why has no science fiction film been named the winner of the year?
In an interview with 海角大神, Paul Levinson,聽professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University and author of the time-travel book "The Plot to Save Socrates," says that the members of the Academy "somehow think that science fiction is not as serious as a movie like 'Spotlight.' "
In recent years, a few sci-fi movies, including the 2013 movie 鈥淕ravity,鈥� the 2010 movie 鈥淚nception,鈥� and the 2009 movies 鈥淎vatar鈥� and 鈥淒istrict 9,鈥� have received Best Picture nods. One contributing factor may be the increased number of nominees. For the 2010 Oscars, the Academy announced that 10 movies would be nominated for the top prize. Now between five and 10 films make the cut.聽
Levinson says the increased pool of nominees have helped sci-fi movies like these get on the short list. "But science fiction hasn't won," he points out.
鈥淢artian鈥� and 鈥淢ax鈥� are facing particularly stiff competition this year. 鈥淪potlight,鈥� 鈥淭he Big Short,鈥� and 鈥淭he Revenant鈥� are all viewed as potential frontrunners, and possible harbingers of Best Picture victory like the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Directors Guild Awards have gone with mostly different movies.
Despite the repeated Oscar snubs, fans seem to love science fiction, if the box office is any indication. Superhero movies are ruling Hollywood, and most of them include sci-fi elements: radioactive spiders, gene mutations, exploding planets 鈥撀爋ne of the genre鈥檚 biggest hits, 鈥淕uardians of the Galaxy,鈥� took place almost entirely in space.
Long-running science fiction series like 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� and 鈥淪tar Trek,鈥� among others, have raked in big commercial successes as well.聽
In the future, Levinson says he could see someone like "Martian" director Ridley Scott 鈥撀燼 titan in science fiction, having directed such films as "Alien" and "Blade Runner" 鈥撀爓in the best director award (he's not nominated this year), but the film itself still won't take the top honor, he predicts.
"When it comes to individual people, they're usually more likely to be rewarded by best director," Levinson says. This occurred in 2014, when "Gravity" director Alfonso Cuaron received the best director prize but the Best Picture award went to "12 Years a Slave."
The lack of Best Picture wins for sci-fi speaks to a larger misunderstanding of the genre, says Levinson.
"People just have trouble accepting science fiction as something that has relevance to our real life, which science fiction at its best does," he says.