‘Dog Power’: Oscar’s Netflix dream just got more real

Status: 08.02.2022| Reading time: 3 minutes

FA long-awaited dream for Netflix may come true on March 27: a movie from the streaming company will win an Oscar for Best Picture. Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog received 12 Academy Award nominations, twice more than Dune’s; It follows “Belfast” and “West Side Story” with seven each. However, a victory for Netflix would be half a misnomer.

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Now, the sheer number of nominations has often been misleading, because in the race for best film of the year, nominations for production design or makeup mean little. You have to look at the important categories which are Best Picture, Director, Female and Male Lead and Supporting Roles, and Original and Edited Screenplay.

If you only count the nominations in these categories, the picture will change. It also tops “The Power of the Dog” (7), ahead of “Belfast” (5), “King Richard” (3), “Licorice Pizza” (3), “Coda” (3), “West Side Story.” (3), “Being the Ricardos” (3) and “The Lost Daughter” (3). The “Dune” giant, for example, turned out to be a pseudo-giant, with nearly all of its nominations coming from less well-known art categories.

Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”), Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”), Penelope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”), Kristen Stewart for Best Female Leader (“ Spencer”). The latter, as Princess Diana, is the only German interest during the awards ceremony, as the film was shot with German money in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia. Maria Schrader’s “I’m Your Skin” didn’t make it to the bottom five in a film in a language other than English, but it did make it into the top fifteen.

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Bill Kramer Director of the Academy Museum

There is hope for the main male roles: Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”, along with Penélope Cruz, this offers two nominations for one family, which can also be unique), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Andrew Garfield (“Tick, Tick…Boom!”), Will Smith (“King Richard”), and Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”). The list of passes (undeservedly) is quite long this year, from Leonardo DiCaprio (“Don’t Look For”) to Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”) to Adam Driver (“Annette”).

Traditional studios continue to play the number one violin in Hollywood: among the ten best picture nominees, two are from Warner Bros. , two from Twentieth Century Fox (now acquired by Disney), one from MGM, one from Universal, one from France (Pathé) and one from Japan – and two from Netflix, “Don’t Look up” (underrated by three Nominations) and “The Power of the Dog”.

But how Netflixig Jane Campion is is up for debate. It’s not “original” as the streaming device came out late (when the funding was already there) and the producers are New Zealand companies; However, Netflix took over distribution worldwide, with the exception of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.