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There have been close calls over the years, with promising contenders like Arrival and The Martian, but to date, no science-fiction movie has ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Arguably, The Shape of Water is a sci-fi movie, but most fans of the genre aren’t gonna settle with “arguably.” It certainly isn’t Pacific Rim, and the quibble isn’t that Pacific Rim didn’t win Best Picture, but that the notion is laughable to begin with. It’s that logic that leaves the Academy comically out of step with modern canon. Star Wars? 2001? E.T.? Alien? No. There were apparently better or more important films in those years. This Oscar prejudice runs deeper than Best Picture, however, and an investigation into a decades-long conflict between genre and awards body may yield revelations – and outrage just the same. Here’s a list of 10 award-worthy sci-fi films and the category they should have taken home a golden statue in.
‘Blade Runner,’ Best Art Direction
Alongside the titles mentioned above, Blade Runner is one of the most beloved sci-fi movies ever, despite its initial box-office underperformance. Fortunately, its recent sequel, Blade Runner 2049, raised its profile in the popular consciousness, unmistakably following the original’s blueprint right down to the underperformance.
In this case, the Academy can’t really be blamed for withholding a Best Picture nomination, as it would be another 10 years before the far superior Director’s Cut. Nonetheless, even the worst version of Blade Runner preserves its Oscar-worthy art direction. Los Angeles 2019 changed the game; it was a visual landmark. Batman directors like Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan have to decide whether or not to be like Blade Runner. Lesser fare like Johnny Mnemonic and Natural City are elevated by merely ripping off the rain-soaked metropolis.
Maybe Blade Runner wasn’t awarded this most obvious trophy, but it’s been a bible for art directors ever since. And even more of a trophy, the author of the novel on which Blade Runner is based, Philip K. Dick, managed to see a work print shortly before he died, and said, “I found my normal present-day ‘reality’ pallid by comparison.” In modern, Oscar-buzz terms, we might call this “the Avatar Syndrome.” Ahem.
‘A Scanner Darkly,’ Best Supporting Actor
While arguments could be made for Best Adapted Screenplay – for translating a difficult novel to screen without losing its power and pain – as well as Best Animated Feature, the smart play here is for Robert Downey Jr., who plays the menacing yet hapless Jim Barris. Twitchy lines like “I kind of have to tip my hat to any entity that can bring so much integrity to evil” are delivered at such a machine-gun pace that they feel ad-libbed, as if they were written with the actor in mind.
This was a couple of years before his big return with Iron Man, and all the awards nominations that followed (Tropic Thunder? Really?). However, it was his ability to maintain a straight face while spouting the most horribly complex inanity ever mustered by a futuristic drug addict that should’ve drawn Oscar attention. Despite other big-name talent like Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Woody Harrelson, A Scanner Darkly is essentially an indie flick, and it must have flown under the radar.
‘Them!’ Best Director
A contender back in the 1950s for the Best Special Effects Oscar, the definitive giant ant movie is also one of the best contemporary statements on nuclear anxiety after World War II. This is to America what the original Godzilla is to Japan, and Them! is a much more confident production. Modern viewers may look back and be surprised by the black-and-white film’s suspense and palpable dread – and it’s ants! That requires a discerning eye like the one belonging to director Gordon Douglas.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to come up with a more stereotypical sci-fi movie than the one where irradiated ants attack a small town. Despite its urgent themes, it’s a poster child for a pop-art genre; just look at the poster! Sometimes, it’s difficult to see past these elements, especially when they’re hardly meant to be “seen past.” The ants are the point, but try telling that to John Q. Oscar Voter back in 1955.
‘Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence,’ Best Animated Film
Love it or hate it, this sequel to the anime mega-hit Ghost in the Shell was robbed of its nomination for Best Animated Feature. In 2005, that was not a competitive category. In fact, there were only three nominees, two of which were Shark Tale and Shrek 2. Come on!
By this time, Spirited Away had won Best Animated Feature, and Howl’s Moving Castle had been nominated. While the Academy sometimes forgets that anime exists, Ghost in the Shell 2 was hardly an obscurity like A Scanner Darkly. A film festival darling, it was one of the few animated movies to ever compete for the Palme d’Or. It’s also a film breathtaking for its visual and thematic beauty. Mamoru Oshii’s misunderstood masterpiece is a heartfelt meditation on grief and transformation, and it’s at least better than Shark Tale.
‘Gattaca,’ Best Picture
If the big ants and killer cyborgs are too much for the Academy, how about a sci-fi movie that looks and sounds like film noir and is directed and performed like it’s the most important thing in the world? Gattaca is handsome and moving, consistent with any Best Picture contender, and yes, it asks science-fiction questions about the ethics of genetic engineering and social discrimination, but so what? Why is that a liability?
‘Ex Machina,’ Best Actress
Being a smart, low-key sci-fi drama from a first-time director, Gattaca was the Ex Machina of its day, and Ex Machina ought to suggest how far we haven’t come. Of course, it was only technically Alex Garland‘s directorial debut, as in his role as producer on previous films, his level of creative involvement was ambiguous. Karl Urban maintains that Garland was the true director of Dredd. And on the set of Dredd, Garland’s impossibly active mind was also assembling Ex Machina, a techno-thriller that garnered nominations for Best Original Screenplay and won for Best Visual Effects.
Finally, a winner, but there can be no peace. Alicia Vikander turned in a stunning performance as the robot – and right there, that’s the problem. Robot? “Beep-beep-boop” ain’t a monologue. Obviously, the character Ava was more complex than that, but her Oscar snub may have something to do with the nature of acting itself. In a recent GQ video, James Cameron talked about how, on Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio had notes on the character Jack. He wanted to have an “affliction, or some problem, or some traumatic thing from the past,” to which the director responded, “You got to learn how to hold the center. Those things are easier; those are props, those are crutches.”
It’s not about how the actor compensates for whatever sci-fi convolution, it’s how well they perform. Arguably, Vikander is fighting against constraints put on her by the character, and there are performances easier to assess, for example, embodiments of historical figures. The very same ceremony, Vikander won an Oscar for playing Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl. Two acting Oscars in one night may be asking too much, but she really was that good.
‘The Thing,’ Best Original Score
John Carpenter’s The Thing is about a shape-shifting alien that perfectly imitates human beings. The horror maestro and a composer himself, in yet another stroke of thematic genius, hired a different composer to perfectly imitate his musical style – and who better than someone with his own very distinct style? The Academy apparently missed this sheer subtlety, but the Golden Raspberries sure didn’t. Indeed, those scofflaws awarded Ennio Morricone, composer of some of film’s most iconic music, a Razzie for Worst Musical Score.
Of course, a truly great film score is only as good as the film it’s supporting. Critics at the time did not take Carpenter’s vision seriously, claiming he eschewed suspense in favor of shock. Surely, these two things can’t exist together in one bona fide horror masterpiece. But if Academy voters agreed with the critics, it meant that the suspenseful score served no purpose.
‘Forbidden Planet,’ Best Original Score
How about a score that people didn’t understand? The story here isn’t about Best Original Score; it isn’t even about the Oscars. Appropriate for the Tempest in Space that is Forbidden Planet, the score was created electronically, the first of its kind in feature films. Avant-garde composers Louis and Bebe Barron used vacuum tubes and semiconductors to achieve their otherworldly sound, which earned rave reviews – from everyone except the American Federation of Music. Their intervention led to a curious credit: “Electronic Tonalities by Louis and Bebe Barron.” They didn’t want it to even be considered “music.” As a result, it wasn’t nominated for the Oscar.
A musical score built by the 1950s equivalent of computers doesn’t come from the heart, no, sir. But oftentimes, science fiction requires innovations like these that critics and viewers need time to parse.
‘The Matrix,’ Best Picture
And so, we come to The Matrix. Over 10 years after its release, a very Matrix-like film found itself on the doorstep to Best Picture – Inception. Both are great films, but only one is the greatest. Just as the Machines considered the year 1999 to be the “peak of human civilization” – how convenient! – The Matrix is the best of all pictures in large part for maximizing every aspect of film itself. It is a sheer cinematic experience, and yet, all of its ingredients work together to deliver the audience to catharsis upon Neo’s self-acceptance, and hopefully, to a more liberated understanding of oneself. Celebrated at the box office, as well as with Oscar wins for effects, editing, and sound, it nevertheless deserved recognition for being the whole package.
Inception, a knowing homage to that strange period of films which produced eXistenZ, Dark City, and The Matrix, among others, was sometimes criticized for a bland visual aesthetic, especially in contrast to its most direct antecedent, the animated Paprika. True enough, the film’s world has been scraped clean of all sci-fi trappings. There is no techno-fetishization of the dream device, no alternate worlds occupying the sleeping subconscious. It’s a zero-G film noir, and that works for the story being told, but it might just speak to a broader discomfort with the wilder, more imaginative elements of the genre.
Science fiction is asking Oscar voters to accept something they don’t yet understand, something they’ve never seen before, and that may be fundamentally incompatible with awards judgment. How does one measure Alicia Vikander’s performance in Ex Machina? Measure against what, Robby the Robot? And what about those Electronic Tonalities? What about bullet time, or metaphorical monsters, or animation aimed not at kids but, in fact, nobody, because nobody understands Ghost in the Shell?
‘Children of Men,’ Best Picture
Well, perhaps with all that, the Academy’s greatest sin is easier to accept. Yes, it’s Children of Men, which hasn’t quite gotten the “masterpiece” reappraisal that The Thing has enjoyed over the past few years, but it’s getting there. These days, a seat at the Dolby Theatre is reserved for Alfonso Cuarón, but back in 2006, the Academy chose not to nominate his sci-fi epic for Best Picture. No, see, that spot was taken up by The Departed, which won!
Children of Men looked ahead to a future now just a few years away and saw, well, that future. Immigrants are subject to detention by a police state, civilian uprisings are common, there’s no hope. It was too much to ask the Academy, already afraid to look forward, to see something so horrible. Indeed, the world of Children of Men, brought to life by breathtaking film craft, is terrifying, but there’s a flower of humanity which blossoms. There is reward in imagining the future, and maybe that’s better than any award. Maybe.
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