Last year, “Oppenheimer” became the highest grossing Best Picture Oscar winner in 20 years. It has been followed up by “Anora,” one of the lowest grossing Best Picture winners of the modern era.
Released last October to critical acclaim and with a Palme D’Or from the Cannes Film Festival, “Anora” began its limited theatrical release with a brisk pace, earning a $91,750 per theater average in its first weekend in six theaters. But by the time it expanded wide to 1,500 theaters in mid-November, the film quickly lost its momentum and grossed just $15.6 million domestically and just under $41 million worldwide.
Among the Best Picture winners of the past 25 years, the only films with lower grosses were the winners from the COVID era: 2020 winner “Nomadland,” which grossed $3.7 million domestic and $38 million worldwide, and “CODA,” which only received a one-week limited engagement in theaters from Apple.
Along with those films and “Anora,” the only other Best Picture winner since 1990 to gross less than $50 million worldwide is “The Hurt Locker,” which grossed $49 million in 2009. Raise the bar to $100 million worldwide, and only two more films join the list: 2015 winner “Spotlight” ($91.9 million) and 2016 winner “Moonlight” ($64.8 million).
Seven of the 10 Best Picture nominees this year grossed less than $100 million, the only exceptions being “Wicked,” ($728 million), “Dune: Part Two” ($714 million) and “A Complete Unknown” ($110 million).
While “Anora” was still a box office success for its distributor Neon, which acquired the $6 million production shortly after its Cannes premiere, the numbers are a a sign of how the dramas, international imports, and other mature fare regularly honored at the Oscars have struggled to find a theatrical audience.
Since theaters reopened following the pandemic, the shortening of the theatrical window has pushed many awards contenders to streaming and home platforms faster, erasing the early-year bump that theaters once enjoyed from moviegoers seeking out Oscar nominees in the leadup to the Academy Awards.
“Anora” was released on digital rental on December 17 but has not been made available on any streaming service yet. The film’s director, Sean Baker, has used his acceptance speeches throughout the awards season to call on the film industry to bring the masses back to theaters for all types of films, and continued to send that message while accepting the Best Director Oscar.
“Right now, the theater-going experience is under threat. Movie theaters, especially independently owned theaters, are struggling, and it’s up to us to support them,” Baker said. “During the pandemic, we lost nearly 1,000 screens in the US, and we continue to lose them regularly. If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture. This is my battle cry: Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. I know I will.”
