The 2025 Oscars gave us a good example of how many opportunities are widespread in which a film and his talent risk breaking the eggs in the basket alone. And therefore sabotage their chance to aspire to the most prestigious prize in the world of cinema – by the way, do you know who they are voted and how the Academy Awards work? We explain it to you here.

Just think of the disastrous complaints in which Carambolato Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, a long -favored French candidate to win the best international film after obtaining important awards at the Cannes 2024 festival and an excellent consent of the public and critics. Much has revolved around Karla Sofia Gascón, protagonist and first transgender interpreter to be nominated in the category of best actress at the Oscars, who found himself at the center of several controversies following the discovery of some of his old and controversial tweets.

An interview given by the actress to explain its position has done nothing but worsen things. Even in Netfli, an international distributor of Emilia Pérez and therefore invests and also takes care of the promotion activities of the film have been raged. The result for Gascón was actually finding himself out of the Oscar campaign. Outside, then, from any possibility of taking home the statuette of a category, however, already of the highest profile.

All Nominations of 2025 Oscars

Winning the Oscars is a political question

In short, in an era in which everything is dismayed to the most hidden recesses of the recent and remote past of the candidate people, especially if there are strong socio -cultural statements. And a clear change of political direction in the horizons of a strongly polarized country as are the United States today, nothing can be left to chance. Politics understood as business and public life that regulates a specific community, has a great deal to do with the Academy Awards. Because that winning an Oscar is a matter of merit or immaculate artistic excellence is nothing more than a pious illusion.

The Oscars, like almost all the prizes (a little less those festivals, who in any case are not free from these speeches), first respond to political positioning needs. That is, to cultural interests, but also and above all economic. After all, the two things have always ranged in arm in a world like that of cinema, which since the dawn manifests within itself the necessary and insolvable paradox of a strongly industrialized art. In a similar context, who is the strongest then? Those who can cope with more, organize as many screenings to show their own film to as many people as possible and invite as many lunches and more dinners. In a sentence? Who has more money.

Three keywords: spend, spend, spend

More than two decades ago to change the rules of the game of how to manage a campaign for the Oscars was Harvey Weinstein. During the 1999 Academy Awards, the Hollywood super producer (later overwhelmed in 2017 by the sexual scandals of the Metoo) was head of the Miramax production company, which he founded together with his brother Bob. On that occasion Weinstein put in place a aggressive sponsorship tactical of the Shakespeare film in Love by John Madden. The goal was to promote the film on a carpet through events to be placed massively along the premium season, which intensifies in the three or four months before the Oscar date, so as to create a sort of collective impression in the sector employees.

It is not that first this did not happen, but everything was considered more a deal to be discussed in a courteous and aristocratic way, with mortgages consideration and recognition. Weinstein’s unscrupulous attitude broke everything. And it worked. Shakespeare in Love won seven Oscar prizes, including the best film, in an edition in which everyone on the card gave the very launch to be saved by the soldier Ryan by Steven Spielberg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng9p1ffwxb0

From then on, the production and distribution houses have adapted to this new paradigm. But acting in this way involves remarkable strategic planning, the engagement of experts for marketing design (the larger studies have entire departments in charge of the task) and a constant advertising presence for months and months. And therefore, in fact, a large expense.

In an article in 2019, Variety estimated that the Oscar campaign for films that aspire to compete in several categories can cost figures between 20 and 30 million dollars. Regardless of the oscillations, in any case film of a certain caliber hardly drop under 5 million dollars in investments.

Because spending a lot means getting noticed, showing their work to those who count and do it at the right time. Another example considered striking is that of Crash by Paul Haggis. Considered by many, the worst title to win the Oscar for the best film – at least in the new millennium – in 2006 the work fed the prize a The Secrets of Brokeback Mountain by Ang Lee, a great favorite of that edition. One of the decisive factors was the sending by Lionsgate, the production company of the film, of the Crash DVD to the voting members of the Screen Actor Guild (SAG), the actors’ union. And from what comes what: for Crash, choral film with a very large cast, obtaining the support of the wider and more influential category had a crucial impact for the final victory.

A question of narrative

Having the money and advertising, however, is not enough. Winning an Oscar also means having a good narrative around your film, which is often more important than a good movie is in fact. In an environment like that of the showbusiness, which feeds on the image and which builds impalcatures of sustainability and work credibility on the image, it is essential to know how to tell the right thing. Getting to vote for a film or for a certain performance means supporting what he did and what he believes who made and who participated in that particular film. The recognition of art as such is a mirage in a stage that is celebrating the activities and health of an entire industry that moves billions of dollars.

It is therefore necessary to be able to set a tone and a scale of values. The advertising construction must revolve around a strong thematic ‘package’ to be hooked to its candidate. And the difference between the arrival or not to the bottom of the stage of the Dolby Theater of Los Angeles is also in knowing how to leverage specific ‘archetypes’, labels to be rented to a work that are more easily recognizable and in which to identify the mood of the show community, which always feels the urgency to appear on the right side of history. Because doing it means intercepting where a society and therefore a potential future public is being oriented.

In an in -depth article on Vox that investigates many of these dynamics, Alissa Wilkinson makes the example of the underwater archetype – that is, of the disadvantaged film and from the troubled and unexpected path – for Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. Or even of the archetype of the celebration of art for the Land of Damien Chazelle and The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius. “Even when a film does not enter the current cultural debates – writes Wilkinson – a vote in favor is a vote for a particular vision of Hollywood. It is a representation of the values ​​that the voter wants to project, as well as if he finds the recognizable film. And this can have a great impact on the destination of their vote. “

Get involved … and play

Another clear difference is then in the availability of directors and cast members to place themselves in the hands of their agents and press offices to lend themselves to all kinds of social activities. Including as many public projections possible, in which to participate personally and with the predisposition in sessions of questions and answers with the spectators.

A kind of events that has been intensified since October – or after the Film Festival of Venice and Toronto – in March and which sees in parallel to work with marketing strategies that work on classic fronts: from the purchase of the sector newspaper pages (The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, etc.) in which to advertise your film, to the billboard around the reference places of Los Angeles, Center Nevrallgic of the Oscar race.

All this in the last few years also means pushing a lot on the side of the construction of the social image of the film and in particular of the talent. Just think of how Timothée chalamet was spent with curious and immediate impact finds for James Mangold’s unknown complete, of which he is the protagonist, on which he has invested a part of the last five years of his career and for which he is a candidate for best actor. At the premiere of the film in London, Chalamet arrived on the red carpet aboard an electric bicycle for rental, to that of Rome instead paraded with a pendant of the homonymous football team in plain sight, of which it is notoriously fan and whose game went to see immediately after the presentation of the film to the public. Both episodes have been relaunched everywhere on social media.

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The point of this speech is that the members of the Academy, which are about 10 thousand, never watch all the films. It would be ideal that they did, but realistically this does not happen. So often they rely on word of mouth or the suggestion of a friend, or are intrigued by a work by evaluating the scope of the media exposure of a given film despite the fact that there are, however, rigid academy regulations on how much a candidate can directly contact or influence a voter.

In short, there is no precise formula to win an Oscar. But what is certain is that there are a series of boxes in which to place yourself and from which to benefit, that it is necessary to work on contacts of contacts and oil the social machinery with a nice dose of charm and smiles.

And maybe, possibly, even with a bag full of money to spend.