Could the Academy’s best picture eligibility shakeup have a ripple effect across the pond?
In recent years, the Oscars and BAFTAs have tried to align as closely as possible on key industry issues, such as a diversified voting body and a representative nominees pool. But when it comes to theatrical release requirements for best picture, there could be a divergence of thought.
Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed a host of new theatrical release requirements for movies to qualify as best picture nominees for the 2025 Oscars. In addition to the standard one-week run in one of six U.S. markets, films released in 2024 will also require an expanded theatrical run of seven days, consecutive or non-consecutive, in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after its initial release.
The Academy’s rationale is to promote a healthy theatrical environment and improve exposure and accessibility to awards contenders in the United States.
That same drive has been omnipresent in the U.K., with ongoing campaigns by the likes of the U.K. Cinema Association and the British Film Institute to get audiences back to movie theaters after the pandemic. But fresh theatrical requirements won’t be part of BAFTA’s rule book for the foreseeable future, Variety can reveal.
BAFTA — which will release its criteria for next year’s awards in the coming weeks — will keep its 2023 theatrical rules in place for the 2024 film awards in February. This makes sense given movies are eligible from Jan. 1, 2023, and we’re already six months into qualifying releases this year. However, sources indicate that the film org hasn’t yet committed to making any changes for the 2025 awards. (And bear in mind, those changes, were they to happen, would need to be firmed up over the next six months to meet the 2025 awards’ eligibility period from Jan. 1, 2024.)
As per BAFTA’s existing rules, films are eligible to enter the awards if they have been “theatrically exhibited publicly for the first time to a paying audience on at least 10 commercial screens in the U.K. for at least seven days in aggregate (not including festival screenings).” There are even more flexible screening thresholds for the Outstanding British Debut, Documentary and Film Not in the English Language categories.
While a direct comparison between the U.S. and U.K. theatrical markets is difficult to make given the vast geography of the former, some critics of the existing BAFTA criteria have highlighted the lack of guardrails in place to ensure that awards-qualifying screenings aren’t just relegated to London. Such concerns come at a time when the U.K. entertainment industry is moving away from the historically London-focused media world, and more aggressively expanding into the nations and regions, which include Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and other parts of England such as the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
Netflix’s war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” won seven BAFTAs this year.
©Reiner Bajo
One senior exhibition source gives the example of Netflix’s Best Film BAFTA win for “All Quiet on the Western Front.” The German-language World War I epic dominated the 2023 film awards with a record-breaking seven wins, including for Best Director and Best Film Not in the English Language.
Variety understands that the movie only opened in 10 cinemas in the U.K. and that the majority of them were in London. (Sources close to Netflix have said the film also played elsewhere in England as well as Ireland.) Data seen by Variety suggests the film only screened an average of one show per day, across two weeks, before it launched on Netflix on Oct. 28.
The film is believed to have eventually played in more than 200 individual cinemas across the U.K. and Ireland, though those screenings largely took place following the Jan. 19 BAFTA nominations, when it’s common for films to re-enter theaters for select screenings.
“It’s a bit of a blow when you give a movie a best film award when no one had a chance to see it [in cinemas],” said the exhibition source. “It’s not right. The concept that it’s important that a film get a broad release and is seen by customers is an important one and BAFTA haven’t gotten that yet.”
Phil Clapp, CEO of the U.K. Cinema Association, tells Variety that the “danger with the current ‘low bar’ here and elsewhere is that eligibility is open to films that few if any members of the public will have a chance to see.”
“So any consideration on their merits or otherwise are inevitably then limited to a small and select group, losing the relatability which is essential for any awards scheme to remain relevant,” he adds.
On the other hand, theatrical screenings organized for BAFTA members can have a galvanizing effect on driving votes. Paul Brett, executive producer of the Oscar and BAFTA-winning “The King’s Speech,” welcomes the big screen experience, and the packed BAFTA screening and Q&A he attended of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Brett told Variety: “I feel privileged to have experienced that film’s superb craftsmanship in the best possible conditions.”
“I am sure BAFTA will scrutinize [The Academy’s] measures — and may well adapt them to suit the U.K. market,” Brett adds. “I see no need to rush into any panic measures as the BAFTA regulations, as they stand, seem entirely fit for purpose.”
For now, it’s all quiet on the BAFTA front so far. (The British Academy declined to comment on this story.) That’s not to say, though, that everyone’s satisfied with the org’s wait-and-see approach.
The UKCA says it “very much welcomes” the changes announced across the pond by the Academy. The new rules, Clapp says, are “undoubtedly a step forward in re-establishing the importance of a theatrical release for the relevance and currency of the Oscars.”
