--- title: What Movies Benefited Most from the Best Picture Expansion? description: The Oscar field may shrink to five nominees again, leaving some aspirant movies out in the cold canonical: https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-05T21:09:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:05:13.328Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: What Movies Benefited Most from the Best Picture Expansion? og:description: The Oscar field may shrink to five nominees again, leaving some aspirant movies out in the cold og:url: https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Movies Benefited Most from the Best Picture Expansion? twitter:description: The Oscar field may shrink to five nominees again, leaving some aspirant movies out in the cold twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # These Were the Films That Benefited Most from the Oscars Expanding the Best Picture Category  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Mar 5, 2015 9:09 PM CUT  by [Daniel D'Addario](/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Mar 5, 2015 9:09 PM CUT The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that hands out the Oscars, is reportedly [mulling a switch](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-academy-weighing-return-five-779066 "undefined") back to five Best Picture nominees only, as an expansion intended to get more blockbusters into the mix is widely seen as a failure. (Though several of the [Best Picture nominees from the past year](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/chart/?view=allcategories&yr=2014&p=.htm "undefined") were financially successful, only one, _American Sniper_, crossed the $100 million threshold seen as the difference between a success and a blockbuster.) The committee that makes the rules wants to see big hits in the mix; meanwhile, the people who vote on Oscars can’t seem to find any. For six years, the expanded Best Picture field may not have made room for significantly more smashes, but it did allow many _more_ movies to claim they were Oscar favorites, even if they may have only come tenth in the voting. It’s been an interesting and at times confounding change in how viewers think about the Best Picture category, flooding prognosticators with significantly more movies to address. Looking ahead to a potential future with five nominees a year and back on the effects of recent rules changes, it’s worth considering what movies got a clear boost from the expansion. If the change in nominations had never happened, what films’ low nomination tally or un-Oscars-y subject matter show would have been left out in the cold? ### 2009  Sharlto Copley in District 9 TriStar The first year of the expansion saw a fairly clear-cut division between the favorites and the also-rans. Nominees including _An Education_, _District 9_, and _A Serious Man_ were nominated in fewer categories and seemed far less freighted with Oscar narratives than the five films whose directors got Best Director nominations. (Among the five less likely nominees were only the second animated Best Picture nominee ever, a critically drubbed weepie about race relations, and a sci-fi pic.) It was a field in which the favorites were easy to suss out, leading to questions only one year in as to why the field had been expanded at all. If there were only five nominees… Would have been nominated: _Avatar_, _The Hurt Locker_, _Inglourious Basterds_, _Precious_, _Up in the Air_ Would have missed out: _The Blind Side_, _District 9_, _An Education_, _A Serious Man_, _Up_ ### 2010  Natalie Portman in Black Swan Fox Searchlight Another year with some movies included that seemed from their nomination tally like clear afterthoughts, including the worthy _Winter’s Bone_ and _The Kids Are All Right_. But this was a bit closer of a year; several films had evident deep support, including, in a bit of serendipity for those who supported the Best Picture field’s expansion, a Christopher Nolan movie. (Nolan’s _Dark Knight_ missing a nomination led directly to the field’s expansion.) But with an eventual four Oscar wins, _Inception_ seemed like a strong enough contender to, ironically enough, have been nominated even in a field of five. Would have been nominated: _The Fighter_, _Inception_, _The King’s Speech_, _The Social Network_, _True Grit_ Would have missed out: _127 Hours_, _Black Swan_, _The Kids Are All Right_, _Toy Story 3_, _Winter’s Bone_ ### 2011  Jeremy Irvine in War Horse Touchstone Pictures Evidently frustrated with the field including well-made but little-seen independent movies, the Academy changed its rules again this year, guaranteeing a field of between five and 10 nominees that would change size to accommodate only those movies with deep support. Conventional wisdom went out the window, though, when the nine “movies with deep support” came to include surprise nominee _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_ as well as Cannes-ratified uber-indie _The Tree of Life_. That film got its director a nomination that, in a year with five nominees for Best Picture, would likely have been a hat-tip to his artistry that stood alone. Would have been nominated: _The Artist_, _The Descendants_, _Hugo_, _Midnight in Paris, Moneyball_ Would have missed out: _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_, _The Help_, _The Tree of Life_, _War Horse_ ### 2012  Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty Columbia Another year of nine nominees was, for once, one in which each film seemed to have relatively broad support. All films had key nominations, whether for their directors or cast, and all but two seemed in line with some general tendency of the Best Picture field, whether towards feel-good history or big, splashy production. The inclusion of French geriatric drama _Amour_ and micro-indie _Beasts of the Southern Wild_ was in both cases a surprise, though surely not what the ratings-craving Academy Awards body had had in mind. And the attacks on _Zero Dark Thirty_ damaged the film so much that its nomination, too, seemed like the consequence of an expanded field. Would have been nominated: _Argo_, _Django Unchained_, _Life of Pi, Lincoln_, _Silver Linings Playbook_ Would have missed out: _Amour_, _Beasts of the Southern Wild_, _Les Misérables_, _Zero Dark Thirty_ ### 2013  Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street Paramount Nine nominees once again, and perhaps the most successful of the Oscars’ recent slates at getting in a real mix of huge financial successes (_Captain Phillips_, _The Wolf of Wall Street_) and beautifully-crafted oddities (_Her_). None of these films seem overwhelmingly likely, given their overall level of Academy support, to have been included in a five-strong field. Would have been nominated: _12 Years a Slave_, _American Hustle_, _Dallas Buyers Club_, _Gravity_, _Nebraska_ Would have missed out: _Captain Phillips_, _Her_, _Philomena_, _The Wolf of Wall Street_ ### 2014  Bradley Cooper in American Sniper Warner Bros. The two most-talked about movies of the past year are two that seemed to sneak into the Best Picture field, after the first five. _Selma_ got only two nominations, with one for Best Picture; it seems unlikely to have made it in a five-strong field. So, too, did a lack of early enthusiasm around _American Sniper_, a film that opened, and broke, relatively late, seem to make it an also-ran until its presence at the Oscars felt necessary. Though there are many arguments for returning to five nominees_—_not least that whatever the Oscars thought they were trying to do in terms of honoring blockbuster, they did not achieve_—_a look back at those films that found unexpected acclaim and were nominated for Best Picture despite lower profiles shows a set of intriguing, worthy films that have made the past six Oscar seasons far more provocative. Would have been nominated: _Birdman_, _Boyhood_, _The Grand Budapest Hotel_, _The Imitation Game_, _Whiplash_ Would have missed out: _American Sniper_, _Selma_, _The Theory of Everything_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/"},"headline":"These Were the Films That Benefited Most from the Oscars Expanding the Best Picture Category","datePublished":"2015-03-05T21:09:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:13.328Z","description":"The Oscar field may shrink to five nominees again, leaving some aspirant movies out in the cold","url":"https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/","keywords":["movies","the oscars"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3733430/oscars-best-picture-expansion/","name":"These Were the Films That Benefited Most from the Oscars Expanding the Best Picture Category"}}]}] ```