To determine whether an on-demand service might take home the Academy Award for best picture, Hollywood has been waiting years. It was the first time in history that they had such a definitive response.

As 2021 drew to a close, the excitement was obvious. Netflix’s Western metaphor about toxic masculinity, The Power of the Dog, was on pace to win Best Picture at the Oscars. In all, it received a staggering 12 nominations, so it was clearly on the rise. In March, though, things had shifted significantly Apple TV+’s comedic drama CODA, which it picked up at Sundance last year, suddenly found itself gaining steam. SAG and PFA award winners Dog appears to be chasing its tail at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. As of Sunday, the results were in: streaming service CODA took first place, making history as the first time this had happened.

This has been a long time in the making, and it’s been tumultuous. It’s been interesting to watch whether a streaming service can win the Academy Award for best picture since Netflix and Amazon began spending money on prestige programming in hopes of gaining awards (and respect). A lot of people didn’t like Netflix winning big since they were helpful in getting movies out of theaters and into people’s homes. Voting for Alfonso Cuarón’s black-and-white family drama Roma to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2019 would be “a vote for the death of cinema by TV,” according to one Oscars campaign consultant, who told Vulture. “Netflix movies should not be eligible for the Academy Awards since they are more like TV movies,” said Steven Spielberg after his West Side Story was nominated seven times and won one this year. Big victories for streamers seem to be here to stay now.

There was some debate about whether or not streaming services will ever win Best Picture, as well as how it would or should occur. Manchester by the Sea was a lucky acquisition for Amazon at Sundance in 2015, which led to several Oscar nominations in 2017. However, despite its willingness to pay for films at festivals, Netflix has had more success with its own productions, such The Irishman and Roma. But it doesn’t imply they haven’t both made mistakes. While Netflix had 35 nominations in 2017, Amazon only managed one, for The Big Sick, a year after its Manchester success. Both had been circling the big prize, but neither had been able to get their hands on it.

This is why the victory of Apple is so surprising. After years of Netflix and Amazon striving to make and acquire their way to the top—despite the Hollywood old-schoolers who looked down their noses at it—Apple swooped in courtesy to a film it recently picked up at Sundance. Even though it paid a hefty sum for CODA—reportedly about $25 million—it beat off Power and a bevy of other heavyweights, including Warner Bros.’Dune and projects from former Oscar winners like Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro (Nightmare Alley). A streaming service, even one backed by Apple’s massive financial reserves, was only introduced in November 2019. Covid-19’s development and release delays may have opened the door for smaller films to have more of an impact, but that smaller picture could’ve come from an independent company like A24 rather than Apple, which would’ve had a greater impact.

Even so, the Oscars are a one-night-only event. Both in Hollywood and in the offices of streaming services, this victory will have a lasting effect. What will happen now that Apple has beaten Netflix to the Oscars, after the streaming service has spent the last several years pursuing the prize? Will Netflix just copy CODA’s success, given that they’ve shown what a successful run looks like? No, it won’t Are studios going to be built?

Apple TV+’s victory indicates that the old prejudices against streamers are gone (or at least decreasing) and that it is conceivable for one of them to prevail. People realize that the world’s greatest films are only a few clicks away now. For the most part, traditional studios are aware that the way they distribute their films doesn’t have to stay the same forever.

For a long time, the disruption of Hollywood by streamers has seemed like a war for the spirit of Tinsel Town—how it’s managed, who gets to participate in it, and what the definition of a “film” really is. To be honest, I’m not sure whether that’s entirely incorrect. Cultural currency has made movies popular for decades, and filmmaking and film-watching have grown because of this.

Corporate interests in mass-market entertainment have supplanted small independent studios as a source of creative inspiration. Best Picture winners like Titanic and Forrest Gump, which won over critics and killed at the box office, were the norm for many years, especially in the 1990s when Oscar viewership was considerably larger than it is now. Only a handful of films and filmmakers competed for a chance to win the coveted “little gold man.”

This was all altered with the advent of on-demand streaming services. Even if the monoculture has been waning for some time, they could afford to take risks on a broader selection of films and show them to audiences since the notional tickets had already been sold to their members.

They might have an irreparable effect on the cinematic experience, but the business has changed before. People used to go to the movies in nickelodeons before Jaws came out in 1975. Once again, the world of filmmaking has undergone a dramatic shift. What counts right now is who is willing to adapt.

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