How fantastic cinema has invaded the main nominations of the 2025 Oscar

For a few years, fantastic cinema is living a kind of face washing thanks to prestigious successes and labels such as “high terror“. The cotton test is always in the Oscars: as a maximum representation of Hollywood’s respectability and the show industry, when gender movies appear in the main categories, we live a new era of acceptance of the fantastic. Like this year.

The circle of life. It is not a new phenomenon, but it has not always existed either. For decades all genres outside the drama, comedy and its variants (musical, western) were none by the Oscars. Until the international success of ‘arrivedStar Wars‘At the end of the seventies, and the technical categories of effects began to acquire relevance. The next spicy of the horror genre in the Oscars arrived in the nineties, with films without traces of series B in its DNA as ‘the silence of the lambs’ or ‘misery’. Since then, and by streaks, there have always been periodic claims of the fantastic in the Oscars (‘Let me out’, ‘The form of water’, ‘The Lord of the Rings‘), And this year he plays again.

A significant precedent. Although last year there was almost almost the presence of fantastic cinema among the Nominated for Best Film (‘Barbie‘, of course, but above all’Poor creatures‘-Two films that never had the slightest opportunity-), the most interesting nominations in this regard took place in 2023. Not only was it nominated’Avatar: The sense of water‘, but ‘All at once everywhere‘He won seven awards, including the best film. A pure fantastic movie that also put on the table a producer who had been talking for years, A24.

The legacy of A24. The great winner of the 2023 Oscar were neither her directors, the Daniels, nor her squad of actors (all awarded), but As we said at the timeproducer A24. Although it is not a specialized producer, it is responsible, distributing and producing the cinema of directors such as Robert Eggers (‘La Bruja’, ‘El Faro’) or Ari Aster (‘Hereditary’, ‘Midsommar’) that the fantastic cinema live A new era of respectability. Which includes, as a consequence, a renewed presence in the Oscars.

2025, Fantastic Oscars. This year we have several gender films among the nominees. On the one hand, the inevitable blockbuster, the equivalent of the ‘avatar’ of 2023: ‘Dune: Part two‘. On the other, ‘WICKED‘, which is a musical and therefore is more in the Hollywood tradition than in the rupture of norms, but let’s not forget that it is a prequel to’ The Wizard of Oz ‘, a classic absolute of the genre. Yeah ‘Emilia Pérez“It is fantastic or not would be something to sit down to discuss it (or better not), but it is clear that the radical point puts it. ‘The substance‘, a film that drinks from the troma and series B, of the Body Horror and the Gore, of Cronenberg and the latex feasts of the eighties. A true surprise whose only presence in nominations is already an indisputable award.

And this year there are possibilities? First of all, it should be said that it was not planned that ‘everything at once everywhere’ razed in 2023, so there are always possibilities. But in principle, no: this year the thing is between ‘The Brutalist‘,’ Conclave ‘and’ Wicked ‘, and even’ Anora ‘and’ Emilia Pérez ‘, but neither’ Dune: part two ‘(which possibly takes a good amount of technical awards) nor, of course,’ the substance ” (Too Molona for Hollywood, it could be said, although Demi Moore should not lose hope) they are among the favorites. In any case, having reached nominations is a triumph: it is still clear that the fantastic is renewing Hollywood.

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