Club Benefits
Netflix wants to win Best Picture. For about the last decade, Netflix has been a player during awards season with the goal of winning awards, particularly the most prestigious prize in the film community, the Oscar for Best Picture. The streamer has come close to winning that “little gold man” trophy that every studio would kill to have.
Ultimately, Netflix has failed to win Best Picture. I do believe in “never say never,” and Netflix could walk away with the top Oscar one year if they keep taking a bite at the apple. Would it be nice to win? Absolutely. It’s a strong marketing play to be the studio that wins Best Picture.
However, I don’t think it should matter if Netflix wins Best Picture. Frankly, they should stop investing heavily in prestige plays and use that money to make more action thrillers like "Apex," "The Rip" and "Carry-On." It’s time for Netflix to forget the prestige plays and embrace its action roots.
Netflix’s dream of joining ‘The Big Five’
In Hollywood, there is a phrase, “The Big Five," used to describe the major film studios that control the majority of the North American box office. The five studios are Disney, Universal, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. Now you might be saying, “Netflix is one of the five most popular studios in the world.” I would agree with that take.
The issue is that Netflix doesn’t believe in giving most of its movies theatrical releases. Netflix movies have close to zero impact on the yearly box office. The only movies that get theatrical releases are the ones with award aspirations, since they must have a limited box office run to be eligible. If you don’t live in New York City or Los Angeles, good luck finding a theater that will play Netflix movies.
"The Big Five" will soon become “The Big Four” once Paramount’s deal for Warner Bros. is approved. Had Netflix’s bid to buy WBD been approved, the streamer would have become one of the four studios.
Not only would the WBD acquisition have given Netflix an iconic library full of IP and franchises, but the streamer would get access to the studio’s prestige plays. Look at what Warner Bros. just did at the 2026 Oscars. Out of 30 nominations, Warner Bros. won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture for "One Battle After Another." With Warner Bros. under its umbrella, Netflix winning Best Picture wouldn’t seem so far-fetched. Now that WBD is heading to Paramount, Netflix needs to refocus its film slate on movies people actually watch.
Do Netflix subscribers even care about the prestige films?
I am not saying that Netflix should stop making prestige dramas and awards-bait movies. It’s awesome that Netflix allowed Martin Scorsese to make “The Irishman.” It’s cool that Netflix is making a follow-up to “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” with David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” starring Brad Pitt. I also support Netflix’s bids to acquire smaller independent films, like “Train Dreams,” and hope they become awards contenders.
What I want is for Netflix to make fewer prestige plays and more action-packed thrillers and B-grade movies. Less “Jay Kelly” and more “Carry-On.”
Two things that happened at the Oscars were worst-case scenarios for Netflix. The first was “Roma” losing Best Picture to “Green Book.” “Roma” had been one of the favorites to win the top prize at the 2019 Oscars. It was a beloved foreign film from a beloved director within the Academy, Alfonso Cuarón.
The Mexican filmmaker won Best Director and Best Cinematography but ultimately lost Best Picture to “Green Book,” a movie that is considered one of the weaker Best Picture wins of the last 10 years. I do think a portion of the Academy did not want to reward a streaming movie with the industry’s top prize. Had Netflix won that night, perhaps Ted Sarandos and his team would not have pushed so hard to win Oscars in the coming years.
The second worst-case scenario for Netflix was “Coda” winning Best Picture in 2022. If you gave truth serum to Sarandos, it must eat him up to know Apple TV scored the first Best Picture victory for a streaming service. Now, I don’t feel bad for Sarandos that he doesn’t have a Best Picture win. Netflix is the most powerful streaming service in the world, which is a great consolation prize. It does make me wonder, though, if Netflix then diverted more resources to movies that are watched by audiences instead of arthouse films.
What does the Netflix audience watch? If you look at the global top 10 in Netflix’s history, eight of the 10 movies are either action or thrillers. The other two movies are “KPop Demon Hunters,” an animated Oscar-winning film that Netflix acquired the distribution rights to from Sony, and “Don’t Look Up,” a buzzy star-studded black comedy that received four Academy Award nominations.
Notice how I didn’t mention “Frankenstein,” “Maestro” or “Emilia Pérez.” I respect that Netflix supports auteur-driven movies, but I can’t say I’m a fan. Perhaps it's just the subject matter for these movies, but they are not my preferred Netflix content.
The power of the $50 million thriller
In my perfect world for Netflix, the streamer predominantly focuses on those B-grade action movies and thrillers that rarely exceed $100 million budgets. I go to Netflix for entertainment; I want to escape for a few hours and watch a movie that frankly doesn’t require too much thinking. I mean that as a compliment, by the way.
“Carry-On” is the best example. It’s an action thriller about a TSA agent (Taron Egerton) involved in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a terrorist (Jason Bateman). It’s under two hours, carries a budget under $50 million, features charismatic performances, and includes a few riveting action sequences. This movie would have made hundreds of millions at the box office in the 1990s. It’s Netflix’s third-most popular English-language movie in the streamer’s history.
Give me more movies like “The Rip,” a gritty action movie with A-list talent and the spirit of a B-grade thriller. It’s a little on the pricier side at an estimated $100 million, but I’ll sign up for this movie over something like “White Noise.” And Netflix had another massive hit in “Apex,” a thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton that evokes the vibes of “The Most Dangerous Game.” These movies tend to have higher viewership than the Oscar hopefuls because they come from a reliable genre.
To be fair, I’m also not a fan of the $200 million blockbusters that Netflix puts out. “Rebel Moon,” “The Electric State,” and “The Gray Man” did not work for me. They were too reliant on CGI, and to make matters worse, the CGI wasn’t good.
I don’t expect Netflix to stop trying to win Best Picture. Just make fewer of these award ploys. I’ll take more mid-level action movies with A-list stars any day of the week.
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