Netflix scored big wins at the 95th Academy Awards, including the international feature film Oscar for “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the first animated film Oscar for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”
In total, Netflix won six Oscars on Sunday, after receiving a total of 16 nominations this year.
“All Quiet on the Western Front,” directed by Edward Berger, won four Oscars (out of nine nominations), and scooped trophies for international feature film, cinematography (James Friend), original score (Volker Bertelmann), and production design (Christian M. Goldbeck, Ernestine Hipper). The film – a gritty, disturbing adaptation of the famous World War I novel – had dominated the UK’s BAFTA Awards with a record seven wins, including Best Picture, Director (Berger), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Original Score and non-English language film.
Del Toro’s “Pinocchio,” a stop-motion adaptation of the classic fairy tale, beat the four other contenders in the category, including Netflix’s “The Sea Beast,” A24’s “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” Universal-DreamWorks Animation’s “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and Disney-Pixar’s “Turning Red.”
Netflix also won in the documentary short category for “The Elephant Whisperers,” which follows Bomman and Bellie, an indigenous couple in South India, who devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu. Director Kartiki Gonsalves spent five years drawing Bomman and Bellie for the documentary.
Previously, Netflix had won 16 Oscars (out of 116 nominations) and has been ramping up aggressive award campaigns in recent years. But to date, it hasn’t managed to win on the best picture front; this year ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was nominated in the category, which went to A24’s ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’.
At the 2022 Oscars, Netflix only won one trophy: Jane Campion’s win for directing “The Power of the Dog.” That was after Netflix led the field with 27 nominations, including 12 for “Power of the Dog” and four for Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” (both of which were in the running for best picture).
In 2021, Netflix won seven Oscars, more than any other studio that year. That included two for David Fincher’s “Mank” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” adapted from the August Wilson play. In 2020, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” was excluded from the Oscars after receiving 10 nominations. Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” won three Academy Awards in 2019, for direction, cinematography and foreign language film.