Will Netflix finally win the Best Picture Oscar with The Power of the Dog?

Will Netflix become, on March 27 in Los Angeles, the first streaming platform to see one of its “original productions” win the Oscar for best film? This Sunday March 13, when the BAFTA Awards, the equivalent of the British Caesars, ended, there was no longer any doubt. Winner of the Best Picture and Best Direction awards for Australian filmmaker Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog further asserted its status as arch-favorite for the supreme award at the 94th Academy Awards. A new consecration for the director, 28 years later The Piano Lesson (Oscar for best foreign film in 1994), but above all a relief for Netflix, which has been chasing this recognition since 2018.

In recent years, the streaming platform with 200 million subscribers has put all its energy into attracting the greatest filmmakers to its shelves: Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Bong Joon-Ho and soon Guillermo del Toro have made a film there. Netflix has never hesitated to break the piggy bank (more than 150 million dollars for The Irishman), with often disappointing results. No Oscar for best picture so far, only one statuette for best direction, awarded to the Rome by Alfonso Cuaron in 2019. But it is the price of the best film that the streaming service is watching. As a way of affirming an artistic legitimacy frequently contested by the major institutions of the seventh art, in particular the festivals which, like Cannes, have been reluctant to broadcast their films because of their non-exploitation on French cinema screens .

The Power of the Dog big winner of the Oscars 2022?

Since its presentation at the Venice Film Festival last August, where it won the Silver Lion, The Power of the Dog has caused a certain unanimity wherever it has been shown. The BAFTAs rewarded him, the Golden Globes too, as did the DGA Awards, the ceremony organized by the Directors Guild of America, the union of film and television directors. Few feature films have aroused such enthusiasm in recent years, leaving little room for potential competitors capable of stealing the Oscar for best film from it in the last moments.
However, the competition is fierce: West Side Story by Steven Spielberg Licorice Pizza by Paul Thomas Anderson or Dunes by Denis Villeneuve have all received particularly rave reviews from the international press. CODAthe pretty American remake of The Aries Family broadcast by AppleTV+, has become a very credible outsider thanks to its goodwill and awards at key ceremonies (Best Film at the PGA Awards). More divisive, satire Don’t Look Up by Adam McKay, with its star cast, has provoked lively debates in society on global warming and the inaction of the great powers on this subject. The candidates for the Oscar for best film are not lacking (we will also mention the sublime Drive My Car of the Japanese Ryusuke Hamaguchi) and all deploy arguments that could allow them to claim it seriously.