The Academy
The Academy versus the box office: how Best Picture winners stopped being hits, decade by decade — and where the Academy's nominees are born, from a Hollywood company town to a global institution.
The Academy vs the box office
Share of Best Picture winners that were also top-ten grossers of their year. The Academy and the audience agreed for half a century — every 1970s winner was a box office hit — then parted ways: not one 2010s Best Picture cracked its year's top ten worldwide.
Blue decades: the winner was usually a hit. Red: prestige and popularity had split.
The last twenty winners
Where the Academy's nominees are born
Share of Oscar nomination slots by nominees' birthplace, per decade. The American share has fallen from three-quarters in the 1950s to under half in the 2020s — the Academy's slow globalisation, visible in one chart.