What <em>Moonlight</em>’s Win Says About the Oscars’ Future
The stunning film’s unexpected triumph is part of a larger trend toward more small and intimate projects for the Academy.
The manner of ’s Best Picture win at the Oscars may have been , but in toppling expected favorite , Barry Jenkins’s film set a number of milestones. It’s the lowest-budgeted film to win the prize since Delbert Mann’s in 1955; if adjusting for inflation, it’s the lowest ever. It’s the first movie centered on an LGBTQ character to be named Best Picture, and the first whose cast is entirely people of color. Beyond that, it’s incredible that beat simply because the latter seemed like a film aimed at Academy voters—a well-made original musical about artistry and Hollywood dreams, shot through with nostalgia for the industry’s Golden Age.
