Why Dune Will Win Best Picture
'Tis the week before the Oscars, and a field of 10 films-- the highest number since 2011! --are ramping up their campaigns in a last-minute push for the top prize of them all, Best Picture. The biggest award has the potential to be either one of the most anticlimactic or most surprising result in recent years. The former is true, because really only two films have won any of the prizes on the awards circuit, and one of those [Jane Campion's The Power Of The Dog] is a notable step ahead in the sweepstakes. However, no frontrunner is a traditional winner, nor is without its detractors; those facts, as well as the Oscars' less predictable preferential voting system means that no nominee can be counted out of the race. Spotlight's and Moonlight's back-to-back upsets in 2016 and 2017, and Parasite's stunner in 2020 taught us to expect the unexpected, so we're here to give fans of all 10 nominees reason to believe on Sunday the 27th.
The next Best Picture nominee in our preview series is the science fiction epic Dune.
Dune, based off Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, takes place in the distant future on a distant planet. The complex geopolitics of the time the action occurs in, as well as the intricate world-building Herbert did in the book, led many to assert that his novel would be difficult to adapt into a film. The first attempt at this, in the form of David Lynch's 1984 adaptation, seemed to support this hypothesis, as the film was widely panned by critics despite the acclaim of the director and the cast. This latest adaptation, from Canadian director, is intentionally split into two parts, and perhaps in part because of this, Part 1 of the 2021 version of Dune was considerably better received.
Dune held a particular significance for cinephiles in the last year. Like many films, its release was severely delayed because of the pandemic, but unlike many fellow Oscar contenders, they held off on releasing it direct to streaming platforms, patiently waiting until movie theatres reopened to have a traditional theatre release. Playing the long game was likely financially risky for all parties involved, but it paid off in many ways. The film is a stunning visual spectacle (it's likely the frontrunner for Best Cinematography, though it faces stiff competition from The Power of the Dog and The Tragedy of Macbeth) that features a star-studded cast, and the insistence on having people see it in theatres has cemented it as the film that, in the minds of many, marked the "return" of movie theatres after two hard years away.
All of its feats and accomplishments have led to loads of awards for Dune already in the awards circuit, especially for its Score, Cinematography, and Production Design. Its 10 nominations, second-most on the night, in these Academy Awards sets it up for a night reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road's arc in 2016. Where that film was lauded mostly for its technical aspects, it also clocked major nominations in the Best Director and Best Picture fields, and was considered by many outlets to be a real contender for the latter in particular. While Dune's most likely best-case scenario is to follow the same route as Mad Max, namely lots of production/visual awards without any major awards, you can't count out the possibility of it being a universally appreciated option in a ranked-choice voting system for Best Picture, due to its serious case of 'movie magic.'
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