{"id":539518,"date":"2026-03-16T05:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T05:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/539518\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T05:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T05:49:13","slug":"f1-proves-the-oscars-has-too-many-best-picture-nominees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/539518\/","title":{"rendered":"‘F1’ proves the Oscars has too many Best Picture nominees"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE (March 15, 2026, 10:35 p.m. ET):\u00a0In a crowded field, \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d won best picture of the year<\/a>, beating out fan-favorite \u201cSinners\u201d<\/a> to take home the night\u2019s biggest award. <\/p>\n

\u201cF1\u201d is a perfectly fine, entertaining, disposable, summer, theatrical spectacle, popcorn flick. The blockbuster film, starring Brad Pitt, is the highest-grossing of the 62-year-old Oscar-winning actor\u2019s career, and he plays a character competing at the highest levels of motorsport, where the average age of professional drivers is somewhere between 27 and 29<\/a>. It is a silly, breezy and wildly successful movie. The kind of flick that puts bottoms in the seats at a time when fewer people are going to see movies in the theater.<\/p>\n

It is also an Academy Award nominee for best picture \u2014 and that is just ridiculous. The character development is kiddie pool-level deep, the dialogue is as wooden as any \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie and the satisfying conclusion never feels really in doubt. Just as the actual stars of \u201cTop Gun\u201d are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of \u201cF1.\u201d It\u2019s standard Hollywood blockbuster fare, executed very well.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m a movie geek who appreciates both the high and the lowbrow. I\u2019m as averse to the academy\u2019s historic snobbery against fun as anyone \u2014 but come on guys, \u201cF1\u201d?<\/p>\n

Just as the actual stars of \u201cTop Gun\u201d are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of \u201cF1.\u201d <\/p>\n

For much of the Oscars\u2019 history, best picture nominees have been limited to five \u2014 as it was and is with pretty much every other Oscar category. From the late 1920s until 1943, the academy nominated between eight and 12 films for best picture. But from 1944-2008, there were just five nominees. A nice, accessible number, one that \u2014 if you were a fan of the Oscars \u2014 made it fairly easy to remember the nominees even years later.<\/p>\n

But after a backlash over \u201cThe Dark Knight\u201d and \u201cWALL-E\u201d \u2014 two hugely popular 2008 films that were also critical darlings \u2014 failing to get best picture nods, the academy expanded the roster, eventually settling on 10. The idea was to generate more broad interest<\/a> among the masses in the stuffiest of awards shows. And that\u2019s how \u201cF1\u201d ended up a best picture nominee.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t work<\/a>, but that\u2019s not really the fault of the academy. The terminal decline of broadcast television has culled the audiences for all awards shows. And watering down the prestige of a best picture nominee by adding to the mix films like \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d<\/a> (from the director of \u201cF1\u201d) did not spark a renaissance in Oscars ratings or box office draws. While the \u201cBarbenheimer\u201d phenomenon of 2023 \u2014 when \u201cBarbie<\/a>\u201d and \u201cOppenheimer\u201d dominated both the summer box office and critics\u2019 year-end lists \u2014 was a boon for Oscar ratings, it doesn\u2019t seem to have sparked a lasting trend, largely because the success of films in the vein of those two movies has yet to be replicated. And it\u2019s hard to believe there\u2019s a substantial number of diehard \u201cF1\u201d fans that are going to make it a point to tune in for Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s monologue.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPlay<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

But the Oscars do have their diehard fans, and they\u2019re a type. I\u2019d know; somewhere in the archives is a column from my high school newspaper lamenting the academy\u2019s choices at the 1995 Oscars (honoring films released in 1994). The soppy boomer nostalgia of \u201cForrest Gump\u201d won best picture (and a bunch more), which to my teenage film-obsessive mind was an outrage when pitted against the revolutionary-for-its-time frenetic dark comedy of \u201cPulp Fiction,\u201d the timelessly rewatchable sentimentality of \u201cShawshank Redemption,\u201d the charming and sophisticated romantic comedy of \u201cFour Weddings and a Funeral\u201d and Robert Redford\u2019s criminally forgotten requiem for a certain kind of 20th century American innocence, \u201cQuiz Show.\u201d (I\u2019ve softened a bit on \u201cGump\u201d with time, but only a little.)<\/p>\n

Five nominees made it easier to even pit certain years against each other in critical conversation. How does 1974\u2019s crop of best picture nominees, including \u201cThe Godfather Part II,\u201d \u201cChinatown\u201d and \u201cThe Conversation,\u201d stack up against 1976\u2019s \u201cTaxi Driver,\u201d \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men\u201d and \u201cNetwork\u201d? That\u2019s a debate no one could ever win, but it\u2019d sure be fun to watch.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAnthony L. Fisher<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAnthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"MS<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02026 Versant Media, LLC<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATE (March 15, 2026, 10:35 p.m. ET):\u00a0In a crowded field, \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d won best picture of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-539518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}