The year has just begun, but the awards season in Hollywood is already getting closer to the main ceremony of the entire film industry — just a few days ago, the winners were awarded the 'Golden Globe' statuettes, and next, we have several prestigious film awards and the 'Oscar' ceremony, which will take place on March 2 and will officially conclude the awards season. This year, as many as 323 films are eligible for the main statuette for Best Picture, but at least a third of them are disqualified for one simple reason — they all overlooked one important (and very 'Hollywood') selection criteria.
More than 100 films can no longer be eligible for the 'Oscar' due to insufficient 'diversity' and theatrical release restrictions.
Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences changes the selection rules or even introduces new ones, making the competition even tougher this year — for example, 116 films were excluded from the potential Oscar race because they did not sufficiently represent racial or gender diversity. Additionally, the theatrical release of the film plays a significant role — according to the Academy's rules, a film must be released in theaters in at least one of the most populous cities in the U.S. (for example, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, or others) and 'remain' there with screenings for at least 7 consecutive days.
The tightening of criteria has deprived many loud hits from last year of nominations.
Thus, the pre-Oscar race has already seen the exit of the drama Bird starring Barry Keoghan, Anna Kendrick's directorial debut Woman of the hour, Michael Keaton's directorial debut Knox Goes Away, the superhero action film Madame Web, the December box office hit Sonic 3 , the musical Joker: Folie à Deux , the controversial drama It Ends with Us starring Blake Lively, and many others.
