“Have I seen that before?” At Oscar, viewers and voters may find themselves asking that question more than usual.
No fewer than four of the 10 best picture nominees this year are remakes or reboots of previous films. CODA borrows the story of a teenage girl who plays for her deaf family from La Famille Bélier, a 2014 French film. Dune is the second epic based on Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel, following David Lynch’s 1984 version. . Nightmare Alley is also the second filmed version of a novel, after the 1947 film noir of the same title. West Side Story dances 60 years after the Robert Wise-Jerome Robbins adaptation, a critically acclaimed and popular version of the 1957 Broadway musical.
In the history of the Oscars, only one more year included more than three remakes in the category. At the 1936 ceremony, eight such films were in contention: Mutiny on the Bounty, Alice Adams, Captain Blood, David Copperfield, Les Misérables, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ruggles of Red Gap, and The Informer. The ultimate winner was Mutiny on the Bounty, which was followed by a remake in 1962 that earned another best picture nomination.
The very definition of a new version is subjective. For these purposes, I take a broad view and include any film that has substantially the same key characters and plot as an earlier film, even if the newer film was not directly based on the older one. That includes stories that were previously made in silent format, such as the first best picture-nominated remake, “Disraeli” (1929), about the British prime minister, and any filmed version — after the first adaptation — of a novel or play. theatrical. (All adaptations of Shakespeare after the first of each play would be considered remakes.) Movies tied to the TV movies are also counted, such as Munich, a retelling of the story told in 1986’s Sword of Gedeon, and those where the original was made in a different genre, such as the animated Beauty and the Beast. from 1991 (there was a French live-action version from 1946) or Hacksaw Ridge (based on a documentary). I drew the line if the plot or characters had been altered too much: 1961’s The West Side Story, for example, doesn’t count as a remake of Romeo and Juliet.
This year’s remake count is surely inflated by the recent surge to 10 best picture nominees, just as the all-time mark set in 1936 is likely a consequence of falling into one of two years with a dozen contenders. Still, remakes are overrepresented this year. Historically, 11.5% of best picture nominees are remakes by this broad definition, but this year that figure is 40%. And since the academy expanded the best picture category a dozen years ago, this is the first year with more than one remake nominated, let alone four.
Dune is nominated in 10 categories at the Oscars.
Does a movie’s status as a reboot matter to voters? The numbers suggest not. Given the number of nominees and remakes each year, the rules of probability suggest we’d expect around 10 remakes to win. In fact, the actual number of winning remakes is nine, quite close to that statistical estimate, suggesting a lack of bias for or against stories that have been told before. Those nine rebooted champions: Mutiny on the Bounty, Hamlet, Gigi, Ben-Hur, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and The Departed.
That said, a look at these winners one by one shows more cause for concern among this year’s remakes. Only The Departed, based on the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, is a true remake if we were to stick to a much stricter definition. Mutiny on the Bounty had only been told once before, in a 1916 Australian film that is now lost. That film, along with Ben-Hur, had yet to be made as a sound film. The previous version of The Lord of the Rings was animated. Perhaps most importantly, Gigi, The Sound of Music, Oliver! and Chicago turned previous non-musicals into musicals, which perhaps deserves another categorization entirely.
Ariana DeBose in a still from West Side Story.
All four of this year’s contenders are much closer to The Departed than the other eight champions, with not much difference between the current version and the previous one. West Side Story, in particular, is quite similar to its 1961 counterpart, and will have to brave history to become the first remake of a previous best picture nominee (let alone a winner) to claim the top prize.
Seven other contenders have tried and failed: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Romeo and Juliet (1968), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Les Misérables (2012), A Star Is Born (2018) and Little Women (2019) resurrected stories from previous best picture nominees, but none of them won. That’s the streak that Steven Spielberg’s film will have to break to emerge victorious.
Whether the lack of an original story is an obstacle to a movie’s chances at the Oscars comes down to how the data is divided. With a generous definition of what constitutes a new version, there doesn’t seem to be an academy that leans one way or the other. With a tighter definition, the number of winning remakes decreases rapidly.
Additionally, the Oscars have a long history of honoring films based on other media, such as books. A whopping 57 best picture winners were nominated for best adapted screenplay, so it’s not like the academy is only open to original screenplays winning the night’s top prize.
Perhaps Oscar voters have seen some of this year’s stories before. But if, like The Departed, it’s a good enough movie, it could still win the Oscar.
