For Academy voters, it’s time to get serious about watching movies.
But do they have access to all of the films they should be seeing before voting begins on Dec. 12 (for the 10 categories that have a shortlist) or Jan. 12 (for the rest of the categories)? Not exactly – at least not in the Academy Screening Room, the members-only online platform that has become the main way for studios to put their films in front of Oscar voters.
Those voters currently can watch “The Banshees of Inisherin” in the screening room, but not “The Fabelmans.” “Tár” is available to them, but “Women Talking” is not. Yes to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” but no to “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” or “The Whale.”
After a new batch of nearly two dozen films were added on the Tuesday evening of Thanksgiving week, there were 119 films available in the Academy Screening Room, a secure online platform for Oscar viewing accessible only by members. But the 27 films that received votes predicting Best Picture nominations on the Gold Derby website, only 10 were in the ASR.
New films are typically added every Friday, so that number could change on Black Friday unless the unusual Tuesday batch is this week’s only addition. (And by the way, the Academy Screening Room site says it has 121 movies, but that number includes a “Voting Explainer” video and a two-minute pitch to join the international-film committee.)
For years, Thanksgiving has served as an unofficial deadline of sorts for studios with films in the awards race. Daily packages of DVD screeners would arrive at the homes of Academy and guild voters in the days leading up to the holiday, with the studios and campaigners clearly thinking that these film professionals would be home and maybe taking time off over the long weekend, so it’d be a good time to give them a lot of movies to watch.
The screeners are still sent out to some guild and critic voters, who in the last few days have received DVDs of “The Fabelmans,” “Women Talking,” “She Said” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” among others. But streaming links have for the most part taken their place, and it’s now against AMPAS rules to send DVDs to Academy voters, whose main way to watch contending films has become the ASR (though one would like to think that they’re all going to screenings, too).
But the screening room isn’t free: The Academy $20,000 to host a film there, with a price break available to low-budget films. (That’s cheaper, they say, than producing and mailing screener DVDs to the 10,000 members or 9,000-plus voters.) There is no charge for placement in separate screening rooms devoted to the documentary, international and animation categories, where any film that qualifies in those categories is automatically posted.
Among the top Oscar contenders, the films that are available to members include “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Tar,” “Elvis,” “The Woman King,” “The Son,” “Aftersun” and “Decision to Leave.”
“Avatar: The Way of Water,” which has yet to screen for any voters, is understandably absent from the screening room, as is Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” which is just beginning to screen but is clearly designed to be seen on a big screen. Also missing are some films currently in theaters: “The Fabelmans,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Glass Onion,” “She Said,” “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” and “Till.”
Among strong awards contenders that aren’t yet in theaters, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” and Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” have yet to make an appearance in the screening room, and neither have “Triangle of Sadness,” “Living” and “White Noise.” Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Few Truths” is in the separate screening room devoted to the Best International Feature Film category but not in the main room, while another of Netflix’s international contenders, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” is in both.
Documentaries make up a remarkable 35 of the 119 ASR films, while animated films make up another 10 and entries in the international race take nine spots. (Given the recent track record of international films in the mainstream Oscar categories, that makes sense.)
Here are the 100 films currently in the Academy Screening Room:
“Aftershock” (documentary)
“Aftersun”
“All Quiet on the Western Front” (international)
“All That Breathes” (documentary)
“All the Old Knives”
“Amsterdam”
“Argentina, 1985” (international)
“Armageddon Time”
“Athena”
“The Automat” (documentary)
“Bad Guys” (animated)
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“The Batman”
“Beba” (documentary)
“Bitterbrush” (documentary)
“Blonde”
“Breaking”
“Brian and Charles”
“Bros”
“Bruiser”
“Call Jane”
“Catherine Called Birdy”
“Cha Cha Real Smooth”
“Charlotte” (animated)
“Close” (international)
“The Corridors of Power” (documentary)
“Corsage” (international)
“DC League of Super Pets” (animated)
“Descendant” (documentary)
“Decision to Leave” (international)
“Doctor Strange”
“Dog”
“Don’t Worry Darling”
“Downton Abbey: A New Era”
“Elvis”
“Emergency”
“Emily”
“Emily the Criminal”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“The Exiles” (documentary)
“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”
“Fire of Love” (documentary)
“Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” (documentary)
“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” (documentary)
“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”
“Good Night Oppy” (documentary)
“The Good Nurse”
“The Greatest Beer Run Ever”
“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song” (documentary)
“Holy Spider” (international)
“Hustle”
“In-Uoh” (animated)
“The Inspection”
“Is That Black Enough for You?!?” (documentary)
“Jacir”
“The Janes” (documentary)
“A Jazzman’s Blues”
“Killing Me Softly With His Songs” (documentary)
“Lady Chatterly’s Lover”
“Last Flight Home” (documentary)
“Lightyear” (animated)
“Loren & Rose”
“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues” (documentary)
“A Love Song”
“Luck” (animated)
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” (animated)
“Marry Me”
“Master”
“Mr. Malcolm’s List”
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”
“Montana Story”
“Moonage Daydream” (documentary)
“My Father’s Dragon”
“My Policeman”
“Navalny” (documentary)
“Nitram”
“Nope”
“The Northman”
“Nothing Compares” (documentary)
“Nothing Lasts Forever” (documentary)
“The Outfit”
“Pearl”
“The Quiet Girl” (international)
“Retrograde” (documentary)
“The Return of Tanya Tucker Featuring Brandi Carlile” (documentary)
“Return to Seoul” (international)
“Riotsville, U.S.A.” (documentary)
“Sea Beast” (animated)
“Saint Omer” (international)
“Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams” (documentary)
“2nd Chance” (documentary)
“Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me” (documentary)
“Sidney” (documentary)
“Sirens” (documentary)
“The Son”
“Sr.” (documentary)
“Stutz” (documentary)
“Tár”
“Tell It Like a Woman”
“The Territory” (documentary)
“Three Minutes—A Lengthening” (documentary)
“Thirteen Lives”
“Thor: Love and Thunder”
“Three Thousand Years of Longing”
“Till”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
“Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb” (documentary)
“Turning Red” (animated)
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”
“Vengeance”
“The Voice of Dust and Ash” (documentary)
“Wake Up”
“We Are Art” (documentary)
“Wendell and Wild” (animated)
“Where the Crawdads Sing”
“The Woman King”
“The Wonder”
“X”
“You Won’t Be Alone”