Award season has begun and film enthusiasts are turning back over the last year of films to find frontrunners for the major awards. Many of these, like The Irishman, Knives Out, the upcoming 1917, and Marriage Story, are already getting Oscar buzz. Others are turning to lesser-seen films like Parasite, The Lighthouse and The Farewell, hoping they get some recognition from the Academy. Inevitably, tons of genre fans are also speculating on whether any of this year's best releases have a chance of winning an award, too. In the past, superhero films like Black Panther and Logan have been nominated for major categories but usually only end up win technical ones, like costumes or special effects.
However, comic book movies have a real contender this year in Joker. Todd Philips' re-imagining of the iconic Batman villain received a lot of acclaim early on, starting with its premiere where it won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. Joker has been nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Drama Motion Picture and Best Actor in a Drama, so it will probably receive, at the very least, a few big Oscar nominations. However, before fans get their hopes up that this will be the year a comic book film takes home Best Picture, they should probably lower their expectations.
The chance that Joker will walk home with the Oscar is minimal. That said, there's a significant chance that Joaquin Phoenix might walk home with the Best Actor Academy Award.
GENRE FILMS RARELY WIN OSCARS
Predicting who wins Best Picture every year is an increasingly difficult task. Lots of films that have become classics often failed to receive awards within their year of release. Brokeback Mountain, Saving Private Ryan and The Shawshank Redemption are all regarded as beloved masterpieces, yet all of them lost out to films that, in the years since, have received increasing amounts of criticism. Some films that received a great deal of critical acclaim don't even get nominated -- case in point, last year's Hereditary.
When a genre film is well-received and racks up nominations, voters, in the past, often try to avoid referencing the film as a genre picture at all. Members of the Academy who helped Silence of the Lambs win Best Picture in 1991 insisted the film wasn't a horror film, but rather, a psychological thriller. The Shape of Water, which won Best Picture in 2017, wasn't a talked about as a monster film, it was a speculative historical fiction film, instead. This goes back as far as the Academy has been around, with Rocky and The Godfather receiving flack for being genres that weren't respected by Academy voters in the '70s (the sports and mafia genres, respectively).
Joker does have an edge, though, as it is primarily a historical crime genre, a particular genre that, in recent memory, has gained support among voters. Like Shape of Water, it also references older films that Academy voters love, like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. But Joker also has a huge disadvantage: it's a comic book film, which means many Academy voters might also be likely to treat it with the same level as dismissal they do the Avengers films.
CRITICAL DIVISION
It's worth remembering, too, that Joker isn't a universally-loved film, despite its initial, overwhelmingly positive reactions. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film only holds a 69% for its critical rating, which means it doesn't even rank on Rotten Tomato's Top 100 films of the year, making it the sole front-runner for this years' Academy Awards to do so. Audiences might generally love the film and see it as a work of art, but the people voting for the Academy Awards might not agree.
Furthermore, Joker, a film that draws heavily on the films of Martin Scorsese, will be competing with an actual Martin Scorsese film, The Irishman. Scorsese's film will probably take Best Picture, or at least divide the vote on historical crime dramas.
It's important to note, though, that the Academy voters often disagree with both audiences and critics on what makes a good film. Many voters refused to even watch Get Out, which audiences and critics unanimously agreed was a game-changer in terms of horror and racial representation. Get Out was nominated for but didn't win Best Picture but Get Out didn't leave empty-handed, and, most likely, neither will Joker.
LEDGER VS. PHOENIX
While most Academy voters would probably never vote for a superhero film for Best Picture, that isn't to say they will never vote for it in another award. Superhero and genre films have won other major plaudits, including for acting. Most notably, Heath Ledger posthumously won Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. This was partly to memorialize the actor's legacy but also because Ledger's performance was really one of the greatest of the decade.
Every critic, even those who otherwise didn't like Joker as a film, has praised Phoenix's performance as Fleck. It also helps that Phoenix went full "method" to perform as the Joker, which is something the Academy always admires.
On top of that, Phoenix has been nominated for Academy Awards multiple times but never won. Many actors are often given favor if they've been nominated multiple times but didn't win, as was the case with Leonardo DiCaprio who, after multiple nominations, finally won for his role in The Revenant -- even though the film got a divisive reception from critics, only earning a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is good for any ordinary film, but not for one that received so much Oscar buzz. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine the Academy, after leaving Phoenix cold for Gladiator, Walk the Line and The Master would be more willing to vote for him this time around.
It could be argued that the Academy won't be swayed to give Pheonix the Best Actor win on the grounds that it already gave it to another actor playing the same role not too long ago. This line of logic isn't backed up by history. Two different actors have won two separate Academy Awards for playing the same character: Vito Corleone. Marlon Brando won for The Godfather while Robert De Niro won for The Godfather Part II. This means Ledger's win shouldn't impact on Phoenix's chances of snagging Best Actor, which would be well-deserved after a long, critically lauded career, even if it's for a film not up to Best Picture standards.
Directed by Todd Phillips, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais and Shea Whigham. It will be available on digital HD on Dec. 17 and Blu-ray and DVD on Jan. 7.