10 May The US Takes It All (Almost!)
The Oscars are known as one of the biggest and most prestigious film awards in the world. Producers, musicians and actors have flocked to Hollywood in the hopes of winning since 1929. The movies at the Oscars are known for awarding some of the most amazing films that show the history of how we got to today, but lets learn the history of the Oscars…
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Producers and actors from all across the world wait to hear their feedback on the success of their movies, but there are only three Countries that have won ‘Best Film’ within the last 20 years: The US, The UK and France.
The ‘film reel’ timeline shows that America has won the most Oscars with a whopping 17 out of 20 ‘Best Film’ Awards within the last 20 years, which is an impressive 75%! They also have the highest average budget on their films which is one of the main factors that could contribute to their winning streak.
The American producers have had a lot of success when it comes to winning the ‘Best Film’ award at the Oscars, specifically between 1996 and 2016. There are many factors that contribute to how well a movie does, such as shooting locations, actors and most importantly budget, which is the biggest part of a film as it controls all elements of pre-production and post production such as who produces the film, where the film is based, CGI and props etc. While the success of the actors in the movie may be a contribution to how well a movie does, there is no data that proves this. On the other hand, this still links back to budget, therefore showing just how important it is.
The average budget of America’s ‘Oscars competitors’ is very different to the US’s funding. For a British film company, the budget is approximately 14 million US dollars and France has an average budget of 330,000 US dollars. This is a much smaller sum when compared to American film companies having an average budget of 25 million US dollars. The ‘VHS Tape’ styled bar chart backs up this point showing that Americas budget is considerably higher than the UK and France, having 10 million dollars more than the UK and just under 24.7 million dollars more than France.
It seems as though Americas streak began to break a bit from 2008, which means that it’s not completely impossible for another country to win as despite the fact that Americas budget is higher, the quality of films from other countries – particularly the UK – is getting better and could therefore be a contender for the US, with or without the high budget.
An image of the oscars sign taken from oscars.org
Safiyah Bennington
