Academy Award for Best Picture

On a rough budget of $1.8 million, Streetcar grossed roughly $4.25 million to finish number five at the worldwide box office for 1951.

The film was highly critically praised and was nominated for 12 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director for Elia Kazan, Actor for Marlon Brando, Adapted Screenplay for Tennessee Williams, Cinematography for Harry Stradling, Costume Design and Original Score, for North and Sound Mixing, while winning for Best Actress for Vivian Leigh, Supporting Actress for Kim Hunter, Supporting Actor Carl Malden, and Production Design.

It has since been recognized by the AFI on the following lists.

In 1998, it was AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies at number 45.

Also, I find it interesting.

We discussed A Place in the Sun earlier this year.

I think we've covered at least now three different Oscar or Best Picture nominees from that particular year so far.

But given the fact that we only had one inclusion from the 2020s in our list last year, and that was Oppenheimer, to see Cate Blanchett and Tar be up at this level already, at least for the 19 or so brave souls that submitted a list for us, I think is notable that we had somebody that made it already from this decade.

Now, understandably, If they were like, oh, look, you have these awards here, these Academy Awards, which give out awards for the greatest movies of each year.

So understandably, if they look to the Oscars as an indicator of what a quote-unquote great movie is, right, then you'd have this alien watching... and accepting Driving Miss Daisy as a film worth celebrating, not Do the Right Thing, right? Driving Miss Daisy, famously the Oscar winner for the best picture from 1989, a year in which Do the Right Thing was released and yet was not nominated for best picture.

And I'm gonna go right out on a limb right now.

Not even on a limb.

from 1998.

Sometimes they get it right.

And, you know, the sheer number of Best Picture nominees that are allowed these days, 10 in total instead of the six nominees that a lot of us grew up with, it allows for a wider net to be cast and for some movies to be nominated that wouldn't have been nominated in the past.

In 1989, had there been 10 slots available for Best Picture, would Do the Right Thing have been nominated? Perhaps.

Don't look back.

We're back at the movies with the 2021 Best Picture nominee, Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Katrina Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Kieran Hines, Colin Morgan, and Jude Hill.

We all have a story to tell.

But what makes each one different is not how the story ends, but rather the place where it begins.

But still, two young people right around the same age using the same terminology.

Let's talk about the Academy Awards, Matt, because as you said, a lot of nominations.

Best Picture, Belfast was nominated along with West Side Story, Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, Licorice Pizza, King Richard, Dune, Drive My Car, Don't Look Up, and the winner, which was Coda.

And CODA, as we'll get into probably in January, we'll do an episode on that because that's when Sundance happens.

for those who don't recall? Of course.

So La La Land and Moonlight are the two front runners for best picture at the Oscars.

It is 2017 or 16.

I mean...

Maybe it's going, it doesn't seem like Moonlight's going to win.

And then Emma Stone wins Best Actress for La La Land.

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty go on stage to present the Best Picture Oscar, and they are handed the envelope that reads Emma Stone for La La Land instead of the Best Picture Award.

I didn't know that's what happened.

cannot do that.

The show that takes you through every Best Picture nominee from 1927 to today.

I'm Kyle.

I'm Ryan.

Obviously, it's something that's almost like a standard now in modern terms in 2020, post-2020.

Yeah.

well before that too but i'm just saying modern times yeah uh we will see like you know when we talked about this uh at the oscar for the oscar ceremony of 1935 where we said that um you know it's very rare that we're going to see movies that were win for best picture but uh don't win anything else yeah right because everything else is kind of like a lead-up like a proof where's the evidence of how good the movie is yeah was it the acting was the um under the Not under.

Below the line.

No, I mean, like I would say like Lupita Nyong'o, you know, like won the Oscar for a fabulous performance.

Actually, underrated, fabulous Best Picture winner.

I don't feel like we talk about 12 Years a Slave that often.

And then afterwards it was like, well, we already sort of like gave you everything.

But a lot of 70s films, if you get to Academy Award level, I think...

You know, if you're nominated for Best Picture, it's like a bit novelty to like, well, every actor's got to be nominated.

Well, I didn't realise

that...

Winning three of them.

Including.

I didn't realise that it won Best Picture.

So, I mean, I've said this before, that I try and avoid, unless it's something that I'm already aware of, I try and avoid looking at what awards it's either been nominated for or won before watching it.

But he was actually a writer in the 40s and then acted in a lot of movies and TV.

He was the original George in Of Mice and Men, a film from the 30s, which was actually his first Best Picture nominee.

So this guy's from old Hollywood, you could say.

Yeah, and it was actually 20 years after Rocky when he was in Grumpy Old Men playing Jack Lemmon's character's dad.

But if you want fun facts, this movie's got them.

We'll start off with the awards history with the Oscars.

This was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning three, Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing.

And it was against these nominees, All the President's Men, which we talked about in episode 37, Bound for Glory, Taxi Driver, and one of my other favorites of all time, Network.

You know, but I think it changed the whole world,

right? I mean, even if you look at a movie like Parasite or something, which of course was the first international foreign language film to win Best Picture.

I mean, I feel like there's just, there's even more of a cynicism, more of a critical look at humanity in the years since.

I'm going to read a few quotes to you.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Jack Nietzsche's score...

But for me, as an Oscar guy, I love it because it's one of the few movies that three there's only three movies ever in Oscar history that swept that one best picture director, screenplay, actor and actress.

The first was it happened one night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert and Frank Capra.