In what can be considered the biggest Oscars plot twist this decade, if not of all time, Parasite not only took home the Best Director award, it also bagged the biggest prize of the night, deservedly so. All in all, the 2020 Oscars was, to be perfectly honest, bloody fantastic. However, we do have to talk about Avengers: Endgame. The final chapter of the Infinity Saga only received 1 nomination at the 2020 Oscars — Best Visual Effects. Surprisingly, it didn’t win. This means that Endgame is the first movie in history to hold the ‘highest-grossing movie of all time’ title and not win a single Oscar. (Quick recap: Last year, Avengers: Endgame raked in $US 2.79 billion at the global box office to beat Avatar‘s decade long record and become the highest-grossing movie of all time.)
Here is the list of movies that have at one point or another been the ‘highest-grossing movie of all time’:
- Gone With the Wind ($US 402 million) – 8 Oscars (including Best Picture) out of 13 nominations.
- The Sound of Music ($US 159 million) – 5 Oscars (including Best Picture) out of 10 nominations.
- Jaws ($US 471 million) – 3 Oscars out of 4 nominations (including a Best Picture nod).
- Star Wars: A New Hope ($US 775 million) – 6 Oscars out of 10 nominations (including a Best Picture nod).
- E.T. ($US 793 million) – 4 Oscars out of 9 nominations (including a Best Picture nod).
- Jurassic Park ($US 1 billion) – 3 Oscars out of 3 nominations.
- Titanic ($US 2.1 billion) – 11 Oscars (including Best Picture) out of 14 nominations.
- Avatar – ($US 2.790 billion) – 3 Oscars out of 9 nominations (including a Best Picture nod).
- Avengers: Endgame – ($US 2.797 billion) – 0 Oscars out of 1 nomination.
I’ve always been, and still am, someone who’s firm about a film’s box office receipt not equating to its artistic merit. I don’t think we should start handing out awards willy nilly to movies just because it’s popular. But we’re not talking about Michael Bay’s Transformers movies here nor the Fast & Furious franchise. Avengers: Endgame is a highly critically acclaimed film (94% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.24/10; 78/100 on Metacritic). We’re talking about a film that’s the very embodiment of modern-day pop culture. Surely it deserves to be recognised at the Oscars.
