The 2024 Best Picture Oscar Nominees: A Box Office Breakdown
Hollywood's biggest night is nearly upon us, as the 2024 Oscar nominations have officially been revealed. This year's nominees (you can read the full list here) were full of surprises, and it feels like more than any year in recent memory, genuine awards contenders are also movies that general audiences care about. Sure, we had "Avatar: The Way of Water" and "Top Gun: Maverick" nominated last year, but both of those felt like they were only ever going to win in technical categories. This year, however, thanks to the likes of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," popular movies have a real shot at taking home the biggest prizes.
One issue that the Academy Awards have been facing in recent years is a lack of interest from viewers. In most cases, that can be chalked up to the fact that many of the films nominated for the night's top prizes — particularly Best Picture — typically aren't huge hits that a lot of people saw in theaters. So, how did this year's nominees stack up in that regard? Let's take a look at the numbers and see what we can learn from them, shall we?
The 2024 Best Picture nominees by the numbers
Before diving in, a couple of quick notes. For one, we are looking at the total worldwide box office for these films to date. This is not just the domestic figure. Beyond that, it's important to point out that Netflix still doesn't release much of anything by way of box office figures, nor do many of its films get major theatrical rollouts. So, even though "Maestro" did get a limited theatrical run, we have no numbers to work with. That having been said, here's how the 2024 Best Picture nominees stack up in terms of ticket sales:
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American Fiction (Amazon MGM Studios) — $8 million
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Anatomy of a Fall (NEON) — $23.1 million
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Barbie (Warner Bros.) — $1.44 billion
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The Holdovers (Focus Features) — $26.3 million
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Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films) — $156.3 million
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Maestro (Netflix) — N/A
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Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures) — $955.6 million
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Past Lives (A24) — $22.6 million
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Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) — $33.9 million
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The Zone of Interest (A24) — $1.5 million
To the surprise of no one, both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" scored Best Picture nominations. That gives two of the three highest-grossing movies of 2023 shots at the big prize, and they both seem to have damn good shots at winning. The Barbenheimer phenomenon paid off financially for Warner Bros. and Universal, and now it's poised to pay off on Oscar night too. That's hugely significant.
We're also seeing Apple firmly in the race again with Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon." That's precisely what the company was hoping for when it gave Scorsese a $200 million budget to make his epic Western. But unlike "CODA," which went the distance and won Best Picture a couple of years ago, "Killers" got a full-blown, wide theatrical release, which means audiences are likely to care more. Apple isn't relying purely on the nominations to bring attention to the film.
What do the numbers tell us?
It's also worth pointing out that A24 is the only studio to score two Best Picture nods. It wouldn't be surprising to see "Past Lives" get a bump at the box office as a result. As far as "Zone of Interest" goes, that movie only recently started making its way to theaters around the country, so its theatrical run is very much just beginning. This nomination is sure to help its chances in the coming weeks, so far as putting butts in seats goes. Other acclaimed A24 films such as "Priscilla" and "The Iron Claw" were shut out entirely. Given that the studio is now focusing more on movies that can deliver results at the box office, it's good that they managed to secure two of the coveted 10 slots, even if some of the studio's other films were left out in the cold.
Meanwhile, Netflix once again has a Best Picture nominee thanks to Bradley Cooper's "Maestro," a movie that got a token theatrical release to qualify for awards before being dumped directly to streaming. And much like years past, the film appears doomed to lose to another nominee, meaning Netflix is still chasing that elusive Best Picture winner. Beyond the revenue, Apple seems to understand that a theatrical release brings much-needed attention to its films. Will Netflix ever adopt that same logic?
Overall, though, these are movies that seem well-liked by general moviegoers and ones they have the opportunity to watch ahead of the big night. "The Holdovers" is already streaming on Peacock, and many of these films are readily available from the comfort of one's home. But they're also likely to be released in more theaters again, which could goose the ticket sales in the coming weeks. "American Fiction," which has been slowly expanding in recent weeks, stands to benefit the most from its nomination, it seems. "Poor Things," similarly, might be able to use this momentum to sell more tickets.
Will hits like Barbie and Oppenheimer get people to tune in?
The key question for the Academy is whether or not this batch of nominees is enough to move the needle on viewership. Audiences love Christopher Nolan and the awards voting bodies do as well. It feels like "Oppenheimer" gives him the best chance in his entire career at winning both Best Director and Best Picture. Similarly, "Barbie" feels like it could walk away with some big prizes, even though Greta Gerwig was shockingly left out of the Best Director category (not to mention Margot Robbie not being nominated for Best Actress).
This is to say, the popular Best Picture nominees this year feel like they are more than just nominations for the sake of a nomination. These are wildly popular movies that are also very much in the race. So, while we had some hugely popular movies nominated last year as well, the popular movies this year have more skin in the game, and audiences feel invested in many of these movies. That could help when it comes to viewership, which truly needs a boost.
Last year's Oscars ceremony was viewed by 18.7 million people, which was a big increase from the all-time low in 2021 of just 10.4 million viewers. But we're still leaps and bounds away from pre-pandemic numbers when the ceremony easily brought in 30 million viewers or more. Hollywood needs people to care about awards — particularly the Oscars — as these things strongly motivate the decisions to make certain types of movies. In an increasingly uncertain marketplace, one could argue the importance of the Oscars has never been greater (and, with it, the average moviegoer's investment in the Oscars). We'll see if this particular batch of nominees is up to the task at hand.
The 96th annual Academy Awards are set to air on Sunday, March 10, 2024, on ABC.