The Oscar Season, Explained

On May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held. William A. Wellman's war film "Wings" was declared the year's Outstanding Picture, while Best Unique and Artistic Picture went to F.W. Murnau's masterpiece "Sunrise." There were two Best Director trophies handed out that night, one for drama (to Frank Borzage for "7th Heaven") and another for comedy (Lewis Milestone for "Two Arabian Nights"). There were only two performance awards: Best Actor went to Emil Jannings for "The Last Command," while Janet Gaynor claimed Best Actress for three movies ("7th Heaven," "Sunrise," and "Street Angel"). The ceremony was held without pomp or suspense: it lasted 15 minutes and the winners were known well in advance. The razzle-dazzle was reserved for the afterparty.

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) opted to broadcast the ceremony via radio in 1930, they fairly rapidly became of interest to a movie-mad public that was captivated by the advent of "talkies" and enamored of matinee idols. At a certain point, the awards became known as "Oscars," with everyone from AMPAS president/librarian Margaret Herrick to Bette Davis taking credit for the nickname. By the time the ceremony was televised for the first time in 1953, movie lovers the world over were enthralled by the idea of a yearly shindig that pitted some of the world's biggest films and stars against each other in pursuit of awards voted on by their peers. Tens of millions of people watched the Oscars annually (with the 1998 broadcast dominated by "Titanic" still standing as the most-viewed ceremony ever), even though the length of the event could be punishing (none more so than the four-hours-and-23-minute marathon in 2002).

We may live in a very different entertainment environment nowadays, but the Academy Awards still generate a good deal of excitement outside of the film industry. They don't move the box office needle quite like they used to (largely because movies just don't stay in theaters all that long anymore), but people still perk up when the nominations are announced in January, and at least pay attention to who triumphs on Oscar night (which is typically on a Sunday in March). More plugged-in film fans begin following the Oscar race much earlier than this; they keep tabs on speculation from Oscar columnists/bloggers and wonder excitedly if this might be the year a superhero blockbuster finally takes home Best Picture.

We call this Oscar season, and it is a lucrative industry unto itself. How does it work, and who benefits aside from folks in contention for a trophy? I've covered the season as a journalist on and off for over 20 years, and have been following it since I was a child. Here's what I've learned over that time.

Oscar season never ends. As soon as the book closes on a calendar year, the Academy Awards chase begins anew, while the one that began the previous year heats up. Confused? Here's the clearest explanation I can offer.

Beginning on January 1, every movie that receives a minimum seven-day theatrical run in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets is Academy Awards eligible. So, yes, in theory, the 2025 Oscar derby will kick off when "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" hits multiplexes on January 10. Do not, however, expect awards journalists to begin writing about the 2025 season on that day. They'll begin considering potential contenders when they attend the Sundance Film Festival later in the month, where awards thoroughbreds like "Call Me By Your Name," "Whiplash" and the 2021 Best Picture winner "CODA" debuted.

It's at this time of the year that journalists are pulling double duty. In 2025, the Oscar nominations for 2024 movies will be announced on January 17, six days prior to the start of Sundance. Some journalists will also attend the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" premiered. Do Oscar voters also attend these festivals or at least read up on what's generating buzz? Unless they have a movie screening at either festival, they don't typically attend. They'll of course read reviews, but with the Oscars voting deadline looming on February 18, those who vote in good faith are locked in on watching or rewatching all of the nominees.

Hilariously, while Oscars are being handed out on March 10, some Oscar journalists will have to fly into Austin for the film portion of the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals between March 7 and March 15. Though fewer awards contenders debut here than Sundance, this is the festival that gave us Best Picture winner "Everything Everywhere All at Once" in 2022. After this, the journalists get an April reprieve before Oscar season cranks back up with a vengeance at May's Cannes Film Festival. Loads of Academy Awards favorites have premiered at this most prestigious of festivals, where, as "Parasite" proved in 2019, a Palme d'Or win can translate into a Best Picture trophy 10 months later.

Oscar season quiets down considerably over the summer months but picks back up in late August with the back-to-back-to-back trio of the Venice International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. Studios and distributors generally save their major year-end contenders for these three events, which are a flurry of sink-or-swim premieres. In my experience, this is when most Oscar voters tag in and start gauging awards potential based on buzz dished out by journalists and their peers. Given that these movies will be hitting theaters over the coming months, they can start getting out and making their own mental list of the year's finest movies, performances, screenplays, etc. They can. It sounds strange to say, but some Academy members don't start watching movies until screeners arrive later in the fall.

This brings us to December when critics groups vote on their year-end awards with an eye toward influencing Oscar voters. An organization like the New York Film Critics Circle can absolutely raise the profile of a starless indie or an intellectually challenging epic (like 2024's "The Brutalist"). There are nuances within nuances to much of this, but, in general, this is how Oscar season plays out annually. 

Now let's get into campaigning.

If you think the answer to this is "by being a great movie," this is quite lamentably not the case. With few exceptions, legitimate Academy Awards consideration is a pay-to-play deal. Hundreds of millions of dollars total are pumped into the plaudit industry, with campaigns for individual movies often running north of $20 million.

It wasn't always like this. For most of the Oscars' existence, campaigning occurred on a much smaller scale, to the point where it was completely invisible to anyone outside of the movie business. If you lived in Hollywood, you'd see For Your Consideration billboards scattered about the town, and full-page ads taken out in trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Decades ago, I always looked forward to the fall months if only to see which no-hope prestige pictures got obligatory FYC ads (my favorite was one for Caleb Deschanel's long-forgotten yachting drama "Wind"). I was also heartened to see a dark-and-scrappy indie like "Heathers" get a small push for Best Original Screenplay.

This raised the question: who determined the contenders? For a long time, reviews and word-of-mouth were key, and you can blame the latter, which was generated by the increasingly old and white Academy membership, for the cold shoulder given to such edgy and diverse classics as "Do the Right Thing," "Blue Velvet," and "To Die For." These masterworks grew out of the 1980s independent film movement (ironically driven by the now prestige-powered Sundance Film Festival), which hastened the rise of increasingly prominent indie distributors like Miramax. And when Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein got tired of being denied the Academy's top prize, he turned Oscar season into a political campaign.

Oscar season as we know it now began in 1998, when Miramax spent scads of cash and employed dirty tricks straight out of the Nixon political playbook (short of the Watergate break-in) to topple prohibitive Best Picture favorite "Saving Private Ryan" with "Shakespeare in Love." The industry establishment was aghast for a hot second before deciding to adopt the Weinstein rules. From that point forward, studios identified their blue-chip contenders in the fall (adjusting for box office performance because no one likes a flop), and spent like Ernest Hemingway on a daiquiri bender. Publicists who specialized in awards campaigns would be hired to secure clients prime media real estate, while special Academy screenings would feature Q&As hosted by previous Oscar winners (this year, Guillermo del Toro has championed "Nosferatu," while Christopher Nolan has planted his flag on the "Gladiator II" hill). 

And if you try to do an end run around the money machine with a grassroots campaign (as Andrea Riseborough did when her peers lobbied to get her a Best Actress nomination in 2023 for "To Leslie"), the establishment will force the Academy to treat you like a cheater (AMPAS shamefully investigated Riseborough for rules violations, but cleared her of wrongdoing).

In short, campaigning for an Oscar is a lot like running for office. It's exhausting and not terribly dignified. But with very few exceptions (e.g. George C. Scott and Marlon Brando), no one's been unhappy to win one. And this is why Oscar season will thrive as long as human beings create motion pictures. We'll have to wait to see how AI feels about winning awards.