It wasn't a great night for Netflix at the 2020 Oscars.
The company made history last month when it picked up 24 Oscar nods, the first time that a streaming service earned more Academy Award nominations than any studio. But in the end, Netflix walked away from the show this year with just two awards.
As expected, Laura Dern took the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Netflix's Marriage Story, and Netflix's American Factory won Best Documentary Feature. But that's all, folks. Netflix was shut out of every other competition and lost the Best Picture prize to Parasite.
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Netflix has had its eye on the Best Picture Academy Award for years now, pushing Alfonso Cuaron's Roma in 2019. Though Roma was considered the frontrunner to win, it couldn't go all the way and was upset by Green Book. At the time, pundits speculated that backlash within the Academy to Netflix's growing domination and especially its unwillingness to adhere to theatrical norms played a role.
This year, Netflix seemed to have a major Best Picture contender in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, which was widely praised by critics. Yet as awards season progressed, it quickly fell out of the conversation as a legitimate Best Picture contender, being completely shut out of the Golden Globes last month and going on to get shut out of the Oscars, too.
Whether Netflix backlash may have once again hurt the streamer at the Oscars this year isn't clear, especially since The Irishman never really emerged as a Best Picture threat. But when 1917 took the top prize at the Golden Globes last month, director Sam Mendes emphasized the importance of the theatrical experience in an apparent swipe at Netflix, saying he hopes people see the film "on the big screen, the way it was intended." Oscar voters may have been on the same page.
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