Save for the summer movie season, the biggest time of the year is upon observers of the church that is cinema. Awards season is in full swing, with the Golden Globes already behind us. More to the point, it’s Oscar season, with the full list of nominees for this year’s Academy Awards recently announced. There were surprises and snubs, and now the race for Best Picture is on, with critical darlings and blockbusters alike competing for the night’s top prize. But which one of this year’s nominees stands above the rest so far as box office is concerned?
Box office is not a great way of determining quality. Plenty of great movies have made next to no money (see the much-beloved “Sing Street”), while quite a few not-so-great movies have taken in boatloads of cash (see 2016’s Oscar-winning hit “Suicide Squad”). That said, box office is important in terms of providing some context for Hollywood’s biggest night. Are the most-nominated movies also the movies people actually care about? That question has become increasingly important in recent years as the Oscars seek to remain relevant.
So, let’s look at how each of these movies fared at the box office, shall we? Before fully diving in, we should note that several of these movies have only just hitting theaters in recent weeks, and some of those haven’t even expanded wide yet. Others hail from streaming services that don’t care all that much about theatrical releases. With that out of the way, here’s how the Best Picture nominees fared at the box office.
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“Dune: Part Two” – $714.6 million
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“Wicked” – $710.2 million
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“Conclave” – $77.9 million
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“The Substance” – $76.5 million
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“A Complete Unknown” – $62.9 million
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“Anora” – $33.6 million
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“I’m Still Here” – $14.1 million
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“The Brutalist” – $5.8 million
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“Emilia Pérez” – $10.7 million
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“Nickel Boys” – $1.2 million
Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” is the clear winner here — for now. “Wicked” is still in theaters and its Oscar nominations are only going to boost its profile. Before long, it will overtake “Dune” to become the top-grossing film of this year’s Best Picture nominees. From there, it’s a steep drop-off, with the heralded Pope drama “Conclave” pulling in just shy of $80 million. Meanwhile, “Emilia Pérez,” which leads the pack with 13 nominations, is a Netflix release and hardly had a profile in theaters domestically.
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When all’s said and done, “Wicked” could be closer to $800 million than $700 million, which means an awful lot of people will be invested in its performance at the Oscars – particularly since “Wicked Part 2” is hitting theaters later this year. Regardless of which movie ends up on top, having two crowd-pleasing blockbusters nominated for Best Picture is going to help bring eyeballs to the telecast.
Several of these movies are likely to get re-releases and boosts in light of the nominations (“Anora” feels like a safe bet there). Meanwhile, “The Brutalist” is getting ready to expand and figures to add greatly to that total. “A Complete Unknown” is also still rolling out overseas and has gas in the tank domestically. It should easily pass $100 million worldwide come the big night. Compared to the box office haul of last year’s Best Picture nominees, there are clear differences. “Barbie” led the pack with more than $1.4 billion. Yet, most of the other nominees failed to clear the $30 million mark by the time the nominations came out.
This year, we’ve got at least five movies that could be fairly classified as popular, which is good news for the Academy as ratings for the Oscars telecast have struggled in recent years. 2024’s show did post a four-year high, in no small part thanks to the popularity of films like Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which made nearly $1 billion and went on to win Best Picture. But viewership hasn’t cleared 20 million since 2020, and we’re lightyears removed from the 43.7 million viewers brought in during 2014’s telecast.
The show is likely never going to see such viewership again, but having popular movies in the mix helps get the average viewer on board. Those viewers are sorely needed to help keep the Oscars relevant, which in turn helps to ensure that studios will continue to invest in original and/or bold ideas. In that way, the box office and the Academy Awards have a necessary relationship.
The 97th annual Academy Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, March 2 on ABC.
