The 98th Oscars were an exciting one with the biggest wins and the biggest losses. “Marty Supreme” lost every single category it was nominated for. Michael B. Jordan won the award for Best Actor with the movie “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” won the award for Best Picture.

Ten movies were nominated for Best Picture, spanning diverse backgrounds, but many, if not all, are unknown to the public until they are nominated for the category. Even with that, they can still slip under the radar and remain unnoticed by the majority of the public.

The disconnect between Oscar-nominated Best Picture films and mainstream audience preferences is clear. As a digital media major and co-host of The Film Corner Podcast with Kade and Jordy, I realized during research that even I was unaware of these nominated feature-length films. This demonstrates how the Academy’s choices, based on industry insider perspectives, rarely reflect everyday viewership—a gap highlighted by declining broadcast ratings.

In 2025, hundreds of films were released worldwide. A system put into place to tell if a film is successful is the box office. The Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of box office is “the number of tickets that are sold for a movie, as a measure of how popular and financially successful a movie or actor is.”

To compare, according to IMDb, the top three financially successful films of 2025 are “Ne Zha 2″ with just over two billion dollars, “Zootopia 2″ with just under two billion dollars, and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” with just under one point five billion dollars.

Both “Zootopia 2″ and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” were nominated for some categories. “Zootopia 2″ is being nominated for Animated Feature Film. And, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is nominated for costume design and takes home the award for Visual Design. However, neither was nominated for the Best Picture category, which is what all strive for.

The question that most people think of is, can an animated feature be nominated for Best Picture? Yes, it can. Some films that have been nominated from the same company for best picture are Up, released in 2009, “Toy Story,” released in 2010, and “Beauty and the Beast”, released in 1991, and took home the awards for best picture.

Looking at this year’s Oscar-nominated films, the top three financially successful entries were “F1: The Movie” (over $600,000, ninth on the list), “Sinners” (over $350,000, 19th) and “One Battle After Another” (just over $200,000, 25th). This further demonstrates the gap between box office performance and Oscar recognition.

When it comes to the Oscars and their voting process, it is taken care of by the Academy. The average person may be wondering whether anyone can be part of the Academy. According to Variety, “Basically, anyone can apply if they have feature film credits. Each candidate must be approved by each branch’s executive committee, then submitted to the board.”

By the statement, the Academy is not made up of a bunch of random individuals; it is made up of professionals within the field. In some aspects, this can be nice to have people who are borderline experts voting on who takes home the award, but how can this truly show what the everyday citizens watch if it’s professionals voting on it?

The Spectator states, “The Academy is their very limited and controversial voting body of actors, directors, and other Hollywood members. While the voting body has expanded and diversified in recent years, only around 10,000 members vote on films that millions have seen.”

In this aspect, 10,000 people are a lot, but it does not justify the millions that watch movies throughout the year. This creates a bias and only represents workers in the industry, not everyday viewers of these films.

Viewership is something any program wants to have. The more viewers a broadcast has, the more successful it can become. With the Oscars, however, viewership has decreased over time due to the disconnect that it has with its audience.

According to Studyfinds, “Even though 569 new movies came out in 2024, the talker research survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found that nearly half (48%) haven’t watched any of the ten Best Pictures nominees.”

48% is not even a passing grade in any form of the education system. If less than 50% of people who are a part of this survey have not watched a single Best Picture of 2024, when the 97th Oscars are just around the corner. Think of what part of the population has not seen any.

To continue this point further, CNBC states, “Nielsen’s data shows that in the years where certain, more commercially popular, movies were nominated, more people tuned in. 2019’s ceremony, which hit 29.6 million viewers, featured nominees from popular films like “Black Panther,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “A Star is Born.”

This shows that the number of viewers is dwindling, as people are actually paying less attention to the Oscars because they feel no connection to any of the nominees for Best Picture.

The Oscars are intended to celebrate filmmaking achievements, yet their choices overlook the films most audiences value. The Academy’s voting patterns align more with industry insiders than with public preferences, creating a gap highlighted by declining viewership. To remain relevant, the Oscars must reevaluate how they represent the broader audience.