Hello Reader,

Even if you don’t care about the Oscars, what’s considered Oscar-worthy deeply impacts what films you hear about.

Because arthouse and international distributors divide films into two categories: movies they think can win Oscars and movies that can’t.

Oscar movies get massive marketing budgets, come out in the fall, and screen for months. So you hear about them. The rest get dumped in the spring and summer, and they might not even tell the press the films exist, no matter how good the movies are. More international films are being allowed into the Oscars, but it’s still a pretty narrow set.

And what’s considered Oscar-worthy comes down to marketing. Did it premiere at the right festival? Did it get seen by the right people? Can you pitch the movie as a high concept in one sentence that makes you go ‘ooh’?
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If a film is too nuanced and complex to summarize so succinctly, it won’t get pushed for Oscars. And that latter category describes, in my opinion, the majority of the year’s best films.

Today’s episode is the first in a two-part series about the Oscars’ impact on what movies you hear about and can easily see featuring C.J. Prince of Acquired Cinema.

Today, we talk about how and why the Oscars have become a little more international and a little more interesting in the last few years and how that affects what movies you hear about.

Next time, we’ll talk about international and arthouse movies that aren’t Oscar hopefuls, even though they may have mainstream appeal. What differentiates these films? And what films can you look forward to this spring and summer?

Episode 160: How the Oscars affect the international films you hear about

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Happy watching/listening!

Alex

P.S. I'm planning to offer a series of themed film workshops in the spring. I'd love your feedback!

​Please fill out this quick survey (4 minutes, 4-5 questions) to let me know which ones you're interested in joining.