Netflix And The Performance Awards At The Oscars

Netflix and the Oscars have always had a contentious relationship. The streamer has recently succeeded in getting nominations; almost every year, at least one movie gets nominated for Best Picture and yet they have not won that coveted award… even when they have come close and were even beaten out by another streaming service when CODA won from AppleTV+.

There is a great deal of the old guard still in the Academy that feels that Netflix should not be a part of the Oscars as they are not a part of the theater experience. This most likely led to the new rule the Academy just announced that a film will need to be in more theaters, which can be seen as a shot across the bow at Netflix. This probably won’t negatively affect Netflix films going for the Oscar as the service has the means to get their movies into enough theaters to properly qualify, but the sentiment is the same.

Even with its detractors, Netflix has been a mainstay at every oscar season since 2017, receiving numerous nominations mainly in the performance categories. However, they have had little success giving those performers an actual Oscar for their work in a Netflix film. 

The films of 2017 saw a performance in Mudbound from Mary J. Blige who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress that year. This was a tremendous deal as this was the first time an actor was nominated from a Netflix movie, but it wouldn't be the last! Allison Janney won for her much louder performance in I, Tonya, but the nomination was the win for Netflix this year and the beginning of a trend. 

Roma was the Netflix movie that was a tremendous front runner during the 2018 Oscar season and eventually faltered from the theater loving contingent with Green Book ending up winning the Best Picture prize. However, Roma did bring about two nominations for Best Actress in Yalitza Aparicio and Best Supporting Actress in Marina de Tavira, both relative unknowns which showed the power of that film and Netflix in general. 

2019 was when things really began to pick up for performance nominations in Netflix movies and for nominations in general. The Irishman and Marriage Story created the one-two punch from Netflix, both scoring Best Picture Nominations as well performance nominations for Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Adam Driver, and Scarlett Johansson, respectively. Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce also captured nominations from the Netflix film The Two Popes. Laura Dern received the first and only Oscar win from a Netflix film thus far for Best Supporting Actress in Marriage Story.

2020 was the year of the pandemic and so this was Netflix’s time to shine as no one was in theaters, so the movies from the streaming services were given the front row seats at the Oscars. However, somehow a movie released in theaters (Nomadland) still won, but plenty of Netflix films still resulted in performers being nominated. 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was nominated for Best Actor and Actress for Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis with Boseman being the frontrunner for most of the year, only to be upset in the last minute by Anthony Hopkins for The Father. Viola Davis also lost in what was a very tight race that really could have been any of the nominees, including Vanessa Kirby for the Netflix film Pieces of a Woman. 

Mank was another big time front runner in 2020 with nominations for Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, in addition to The Trial of the Chicago Seven where Sacha Baron Coen received a nomination. Even with all of these nominations, none of these actors from Netflix movies managed to pick up an award. 

2021 was a huge year for Netflix that ended in a huge deal of disappointment. The Power of the Dog led in nominations including performance nominations for Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Kodi was the front runner after a Golden Globe win and the film was a front runner for Best Picture, on its way to be the first film from a streaming service to win Best Picture. In a cruel twist of fate, CODA, a film from a different streaming service, ended up winning the top prize and also stealing the Best Supporting Actor Oscar from Kodi Smit-McPhee. 

In this same year, The Lost Daughter received two performance nominations for Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley while Tick, Tick, Boom locked in a nomination for Best Actor for Andrew Garfield. The pattern continued, however, where they all lost to other performances ce. 

2022 was the worst Oscar year for Netflix with only one film being nominated for Best Picture in All Quiet on the Western Front and one nomination for a performer in Ana de Armas from Blonde. The latter was a film and nomination not respected and therefore she was far from close to winning. 

Finally, in this past year, there were several possibilities for actors to win in Netflix films. Bradley Cooper wrote, directed, and starred in Maestro and was also covered in a heavy amount of makeup which usually leads to winning an Oscar (but it did not end up happening for him). Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan was also nominated but, upon its release, the film did not get the type of booming reception even though it did still get nominated for several awards. 

Colman Domingo also finally received a long overdue nomination for his work in Rustin, but it was more of a win for him to be nominated at all and was still an accomplishment in such a crowded Best Actor race. Annette Benning and Jodie Foster both scored nominations for NYAD with Benning being someone that in another year would have absolutely run (or swam) to the win easily especially with her narrative of still not having won an Oscar. 

It doesn’t necessarily mean anything that in the past 7 years only one performance from a Netflix movie has won an Oscar, even after so many receiving nominations, sometimes this is just how the narrative shifts but it is still interesting that this is how things have shaken out for the streaming service.

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