Best Picture’s Long-Lost Cousin: the Best Picture

'Wings' may have won the "Best Picture" Academy Award in 1929 but it wasn't the only film to do so.

The general consensus for this year’s Academy Awards is that the “Best Picture” category boils down to two films – Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Among that consensus there’s a great many people who feel The Hurt Locker will win; but if you’re curious to know how the Academy will vote look no further than the 1929 and 1930 Academy Awards ceremonies.

That first ceremony saw two Best Picture awards handed out – one to William Wellman’s Wings for “Best Picture, Production” and one for F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise for “Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production.” The Academy’s original goal was to honor the mainstream, popular films that did well at the box office and the smaller, more experimental films that received less coverage but played just as important a role in the development of the medium. The practice of handing out two Best Picture awards was quickly done away with and by the following year the voters chose to acknowledge just one film as “Best Picture” – MGM’s The Broadway Melody.

One could point to the fact that Wellman was “one of Hollywood’s” while Murnau was a foreigner in the Academy’s subsequent decision in 1930, choosing to recognize their own as opposed to outsiders, but the results of future awards ceremonies would point towards a favoring of middlebrow films with wide popularity over more refined films with more of a niche audience.

Ironic that this year marks the first time the Academy has expanded their Best Picture category to ten nominees in what was purported to be an act of shining a light on films that may have slipped past the public’s view. While that may have been the intention it certainly wasn’t the outcome. Of the five “extra” nominees (Warner Brothers’ The Blind Side, Tristar’s District 9, Disney’s Up, Focus Features’ A Serious Man, Sony Pictures Classics’ An Education)*, three of them finished in the top 27 at the box office in 2009, with two of them finishing in the top 8. Even with the opportunity to acknowledge more innovative, limited-appeal films the Academy, once again, erred on the side of commerce and popularity.

So for those of you believing The Hurt Locker will walk away with this year’s “Best Picture” Oscar, don’t be surprised to see James Cameron up on the stage when the night wraps up. All one needs to do is look to the origins of the “Best Picture” category to see the proof.

*Determining the five “extra” nominees was done by matching up the five “Best Director” nominees with the five “Best Picture” nominees. The remaining five films are the five “extra” nominees for Best Picture. The trend for “Best Director” nominees to come from “Best Picture” nominees has been in place for decades.