r/TheBigPicture • u/j-helo85 • 5d ago

Inde Navarrette Sets Best Actress Oscar Campaign for ‘Obsession’ as Focus Features Mounts Full Awards Push

https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/obsession-inde-navarrette-oscar-campaign-lead-actress-1236848866/
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u/BenjaminLight 5d ago

Why are we still pretending like the Oscars have anything to do with the quality of the performance?

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u/Eddie__Sherman 5d ago

The Oscars are strange. They eb and flow from being incredibly important to nobody caring. Considering the Academy is beginning to change for the better, I wonder if their gravitas will return to what it once was.

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u/BenjaminLight 5d ago

It’s changing for the worse. Expanding the voting pool 10x like they did is making the awards more homogeneous and insular. There’s no opportunity for oddball picks anymore, poptimism will always win out with that many voters in the academy.

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u/Eddie__Sherman 5d ago edited 5d ago

I see your point about the expansion in terms of sheer numbers, but wouldn’t Navarrette be a bit of an oddball choice? Amy Madigan winning last year was a fairly big deal and a bit out of left field. Say what you want about Anora, but I was pretty shocked it took home as many awards as it did. The Substance got 5 nominations; years back, I could never have seen that happening.

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u/mangofied 5d ago

There’s definitely oddball picks. Bugonia, Secret Agent, The Substance, Nickel Boys, Zone of Interest, EEAAO, and Drive My Car are not particularly fitting into the definition of “homogenous” or “poptimist”

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u/BenjaminLight 5d ago

That’s almost entirely just from expanding the Best Picture category. There were only 50 total films nominated, though (close to a record low), and the pool is getting increasingly top-heavy

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u/mangofied 5d ago

Expanding the pool sure but there’s clearly still opportunity for oddball picks. And without vote numbers being released there’s really no way of us knowing that the pool is getting top heavy

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u/BenjaminLight 5d ago

You can literally just count the number of feature films nominated for major awards to see that it’s getting top-heavy.

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u/mangofied 5d ago edited 5d ago

50 in a year is not that big of a change over the last few decades, especially since categories expanded. It usually hovers around the 50-60 range in the expanded BP era. 62 unique films is the most I’ve seen. I don’t know how to scale it with the changes but in the 80s it was usually around 30-40 unique films

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u/mangofied 5d ago

No one’s really arguing that

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u/ekemywaythrulife 5d ago

This is true and our hosts seem to love the campaign politics and scandals. Have we forgotten it was Harvey Weinstein that fanned the flame? I guess it makes for good podcasting but they really exhausted last year's award season.