Oppenheimer

  And this week's Friday night movie has been... Oppenheimer!

Original image located here. Accessed 27th December 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 96 (2023)

And so, we end this year-long undertaking by saying hello to the new guy.

Twelve months of watching Best Picture Oscar winners have led to this moment. And one would think that by now I should know what to expect.

From the outset, this movie makes something of a comeback: After over a decade of smaller scale/low earning/indie movies, the pendulum has swung back and a Best Picture victory has been made for a major studio. It may be too early to call if this is a game-changer but it does make for an interesting situation for future Best Picture winners.
Actually, now that I think of it, that Oppenheimer won does indeed feel like a throwback to an earlier, epic-focused, era of Oscars. For years there was this joke that if you wanted to win big all you needed to do was have both a stacked cast and your movie set in World War II. And this movie does indeed do that. In addition, having a troubled protagonist and a three hour run time doesn’t hurt either.
Still the film geek in me was pleased that Christopher Nolan finally received his dues and picked up the Best Director Oscar.

But enough of my rambling: what about the movie itself?

I may have seen some dense movies in my time but this is another level entirely: It is dialogue heavy, the progression of the plot is in a strange order, it is indeed hard to follow and the cast are rendered practically unrecognisable.
And yet, this is a movie that is firing on all cylinders. The ensemble cast is great, the visuals incredible, Nolan’s insistence on practical effects truly deliver, the direction is superb and the mood is one of reflection and guilt. If this movie was utilising the afore-mentioned Oscar-winning formula then the result is effectively a subversion of it – and makes the movie even more fascinating.

And with that, this year-long undertaking is completed: I set out to watch a Best Picture Oscar winning movie for every week of 2024 and I’ve done it.
It has been a fascinating journey as not only have I seen some movies that I’ve never seen before but I have seen a history of cinema progress before me, pinpointing the rise of trends and the changing of attitudes.

The major takeaways from this are as follows:

• I have seen some movies, and some genres I wouldn’t have previously considered. And much to my surprise I found some enjoyment in them.
• The concept of ‘Best Picture’ is somewhat misleading: It is less about the best movie of the year and more what was popular at the time. And that is an approach that should be adhered to when talking about Best Picture winners. I mean, when you think about it, winning Best Picture, being beloved by audiences AND being held up as the best of the medium is a very difficult hat-trick to pull off. And how many movies have done it? All Quiet on the Western Front? It Happened One Night? Casablanca? The Godfather 1 and 2? Schindler’s List? Lord of the Rings: Return of the King?
• It would appear that every decade of Best Picture winners is a reaction against the previous one: The real-life concerns of the forties getting you down? Well, here’s the fifties and some large-scale entertainment. Tired of the musicals of sixties? Don’t worry: here’s some seventies cynicism. Bored of the eighties output? Here comes the nineties and a new era of the blockbuster.
• Similarly, the long-held idea that the Academy Awards voters are all aging and caught in a state of stagnation/regression is also incorrect: Watching all these Best Picture Winners, the trends and mindset of the time becomes apparent and it’s surprising that the Academy goes out of it’s way to conduct a course correction when possible.
• Shakespeare in Love is not the worst/less-deserving Best Picture winner.

So in the end, this has been an enlightening experience, wandering through film history and seeing a path of changes and trends. And it was a journey I’ve been wanting to make for some time, and I am grateful to have made it.

And so, to wrap this up, I have spent the past twenty-four months indulging with my film geek. That being said, next year I think I’ll watch something more fun….