2021 was no doubt an interesting year for films due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but something that always remains constant is the Academy Awards. This year, the 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27. Recently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a shortlist of 276 films that could be nominated for the best picture award. Included in this list is “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which has been a huge box office success despite the pandemic still raging on.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is on the best picture shortlist because the proper paperwork was submitted and the film was released after February 2021. While it does not mean that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” will definitely be nominated for best picture, it does mean there’s a chance.
Historically, superhero films have been hit or miss at the Academy Awards. The first few blockbuster superhero films only received recognition in the technical categories, as films like “Superman” (1978), “Batman” (1989) and “Spider-Man” (2002) got nominated for a combination of sound, film editing, score, art direction and visual effects. It was not until 2008 that a superhero film was recognized for a nontechnical award when Heath Ledger won best supporting actor for “The Dark Knight.” The next superhero film to do this was 2017’s “Logan” when it got nominated for best adapted screenplay. The following year, “Black Panther” became the first superhero film to be nominated for best picture. In 2019, “Joker” followed this success with 11 total nominations, including best picture, best director and a win for Joaquin Phoenix in the best actor category.
Another landmark moment for the Academy Awards was when they expanded the best picture category from only five films to 10 films, following the 2009 Academy Awards. The shift was supposed to allow more blockbuster films into the category in part because of the controversy surrounding “The Dark Knight” being snubbed in the best picture category. While this did not immediately result in the nomination of superhero films, we have recently seen two superhero films receive the prestigious designation. This means that there is precedent for “Spider-Man: No Way Home” to potentially be recognized for best picture.
It is also important to consider how “Spider-Man: No Way Home” compares critically to “Black Panther” and “Joker.” Both of these films received critical praise, as “Black Panther” had 96 percent positive ratings on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with an average score of 8.3 out of 10 from critics. Similarly, “Joker” had 68 percent positive ratings on the Tomatometer with an average rating of 7.3. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” received a similar amount of praise to “Black Panther,” with 93 percent positive ratings from critics and an average score of 7.9. Interestingly, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” also has the highest audience score of the three films with 98 percent audience positive ratings, as compared to 79 percent for “Black Panther” and 88 percent for “Joker.” On the whole, what this means is that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has certainly received enough critical acclaim to merit a best picture nomination, as it got better reviews than “Joker” and almost as much praise as “Black Panther,” which both managed to get a best picture nod.
Another factor to look at is how “Spider-Man: No Way Home” compares to the other films in contention for best picture this year. Variety’s top picks for Best Picture include “Belfast,” “The Power of the Dog” and “CODA.” All of these films have received similar reviews to “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” as “Belfast” has 87 percent positive critical reviews with a 7.8 rating, “The Power of the Dog” has 94 percent positive reviews with an 8.4 rating and “CODA” has 96 percent positive reviews with a 7.9 rating. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” fits in with all these ratings and even has a higher critical score than Variety’s top pick for best picture, “Belfast.”
The final element to consider is the box office performance of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Since the global pandemic began in March 2020, films have struggled mightily at the box office, and this has led to many delays and box office flops from films released in 2020 and 2021. However, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has been a nice change of tone by demolishing pandemic box office records, and has even become one of the highest-grossing films domestically of all time, topping “Titanic” and “Jurassic World.”
While the Academy Awards does not always recognize high-grossing films, films such as “Titanic” have had major success at both the box office and Academy Awards. It is also important to note that the 1998 Academy Awards telecast, which heavily featured “Titanic,” had huge rating gains due to the commercial popularity of “Titanic.” It would be smart for the Academy Awards to nominate “Spider-Man: No Way Home” to increase buzz for the telecast, as the 2021 Academy Awards saw a 56 percent drop in viewership from the 2020 Academy Awards.
Overall, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” deserves to be nominated for best picture because it matches up to the previous superhero films nominated for the award and the other films in contention this year. This year, the Academy Awards have a chance to make up for years of superhero award snubs and, more importantly, honor one of 2021’s best films — even if it happens to feature web-slinging heroes and green super-villains.
Elijah Engler is a freshman majoring in chemistry.